
Qass. 
Book 



u37 



27| 



THE 

CULTURE DEMANDED 

BY 

MODERN LI F E 



A SERIES OF ADDRESSES AND ARGUMENTS 

ON 

THE CLAIMS OF SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION 



DY PROFESSORS TYNDALL, HENFREY, HUXLEY, PAGET, AVHEWEL 

FARADAY, LIEBIG, DRAPER, DE MORGAN ; DRS. BARNARD, 

HODGSON, CARPENTER, HOOKER, ACLAND, FORBES, 

HERBERT SPENCER, SIR JOHN HERSCHEL, 

SIR CHARLES LYELL, DR. SEGUIN, 

MR. MILL, ETC. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION ON MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION BY 

E. L. YOUMANS. 



"Scientific Education, apart from professional objects, is but a preparatio 
for judging rightly of man, and of his requirements and interests." 

yoAn Stuart Mi, 



NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPxVNY, 

549 & 651 BROADWAY. 

1871. 



-^(p^ 

•;«i^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by 
D. APPLETON & CO., 
the Clerk's Office of" die District Court of the United States for the Southern 
District of New York, 



>^ 



PREFACE 



The system of Popular Education in this country h; 
become an established fact, and the extensive provisioi 
for it in all the States show how generally and thorough 
it is appreciated. But the movement which led to it pr< 
ceeded from the feeling of a ivant to be supplied^ rath 
than from any clear perception of the character of tl 
thing wanted. While the struggle was to get it acceptc 
any thing passing under the name of Education — ^any thir , 
learned from books at stated times and in set places — w; 
sufficient. 

But the first step being taken and the System secure .' 
the question inevitably arises as to its character, defect 
and the means of its improvement ; and this is now tl 
supreme consideration. Deepei than all questions c 
Reconstruction, Suifrage, and Finance, is the questio. 
JVbat kind of culture shall the growing mind of the natic 
have F The recent and extensive organization of Norm . 
Schools for the more thorough and systematic preparatic 
of Teachers, is proof of a general desire to improve th 



vi PREFACE. 

methods and raise the standard of popular instruction ; and 
there arc many other indications of a growing disposition 
to. carry educational inquiries down to first principles, and 
) bring the system into better harmony with the needs of 
le times. 
Among other imperfections of the prevailing education, 
I all its grades, one of the most serious is a lack of the 
-udy of Nature. The importance of giving a larger space 
) scientific subjects, in our educational courses, is being 
very year more and more felt and acknowledged. In 
lace of the excess of verbal acquisition and mechanical 
citation, we need more thinking about things ; in place 
f the passive acceptance of mere book and tutorial au- 
lority, more cultivation of independent judgment ; in 
lace of the arbitrary presentation of unrelated subjects, 
; le branches of knowledge require to be dealt with in a 
lore rational and connected order; and in place of much 
lat is irrelevant, antiquated, and unpractical in our sys- 
mis of study, there is needed a larger infusion of the liv- 
)g and available truth which belongs to the present time. 
I conviction of the extent of its defects and needs has led 
lany of the most eminent thinkers to criticise the existing 
'.ducational Systems, and to urge the claims of the various 
;iences to increasing consideration. These opinions have 
enerally been expressed in the form of lectures and inci- 
ental arguments, which are not convenient of access ; and 
belief that it would be a useful service at the present 
me to collect some of the most important of them, has 
;d to the present compilation. 



PREFACE. Vii 

Most of the lectures in this volume have not been be- 
fore published in this country, and the authors of several 
have kindly revised their productions for the present work. 
It may be added that several of the discussions are impor- 
tant not only as presenting the claims and educational 
value of their subjects, but also as suggesting the best 
methods of their study. Professor Liebig's late lecture 
on the " Development of Ideas in Physical Science " has 
so direct a bearing upon the position and claims of science, 
especially in this country, as to deserve a place in the pres- 
ent collection ; and an excellent translation of it has been 
expressly made for this volume. 

Nearly all the discussions it contains have been made 
within the last dozen years, and several of them quite 
recently ; so that they may be regarded ^s outgrowths and 
exponents of the present state of thought. Those of 
Tyndall, Paget, Faraday, Whewell, and Hodgson, were 
parts of a course delivered before the Royal Institution of 
Great Britain, on the claims of the various sciences as 
means of the education of all classes. Although the 
•reader may miss in this volume the connection and co- 
herency of a systematic treatise on the subject by a single 
writer, and even note some minor points of disagreement, 
yet he will find that each statement is a section of a 
comprehensive and essentially harmonious argument which 
presents an attractive variety of treatment j while the stamp 
of various and powerful minds, each speaking upon the 
subject with which he is best acquainted, must give the 
general discussion far greater authority than the work of 



viii PREFACE. 

any one man, no matter how able, could possibly pos- 
sess. 

The lecture on " The Scientific Study of Human Na- 
ture," and the' introductory essay on "Mental Discipline 
in Education " have been contributed by the editor, not 
because he thought himself at all competent to do justice 
to these interesting topics, but because, holding them to be 
of the first importance, he was unable to find any discus- 
sion of them in a form appropriate to the volume. In the 
Introduction he has attempted to show that a course of 
study, mainly scientific, not only meets the full require- 
ments of mental training, but also affords the kind of cul- 
ture or mental discipline which is especially needed in this 
country at the present time. He has there presented the 
phases of discipline as successive^ and the course of subjects 
should undoubtedly conform to the order stated ; yet, as 
President Hill, of Harvard, has pointed out in his admira- 
ble pamphlet on " The True Order of Studies," the 
pupil's mind requires to be variously exercised from the 
outset J — several different lines of acquisition being car- 
ried along together. The organization of a scheme of 
study adapted to American wants is the educational prob 
lem immediately before us, and the present volume, it is 
hoped, will contribute valuable suggestions toward its so- 
lution. 

New York, May i, 1867. 



CONTENTS 



•.EFACE, 

TRODUCTION— ON MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCA- 
TION, I 

>OFESSOR TYNDALL ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS, 57 
..OFESSOR HENFREY ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY, 87 
LOFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY, 117 
I. JAMES PAGET ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY, 147 
I. FARADAY ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDG- 
MENT, 185 

I. WHEWELL ON THE EDUCATIONAL HISTORY OF 

SCIENCE, 225 

I. HODGSON ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE, 253 
R. HERBERT SPENCER ON POLITICAL EDUCATION, 295 
1. BARNARD ON EARLY MENTAL TRAINING, . . 309 
flOFESSOR LIEBIG ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIEN- 
TIFIC IDEAS, 345 

L. YOUMANS ON THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN 

NATURE, 371 



,jP' CONTENTS. 

APPENDIX. 

Pack 
Sir John Htrichel on Uni'vcrsity Studies, . . . . , .415 

Dr. George E, Paget on the General Influence of Scientific Culture, . 418 
Herbert Spencer on the Order of Disco'very in the Progress of Knoivlcdge, 435 
Dr. Draper on the Deficiencies of Clerical Education, . . . ,427 

Dr. Scguin on the Physiological Basis of Primary Education, , , 43 1 

Dr. Tf^ayland on Modern Collegiate Studies, .... 434 

Professor De Morgan on Thoroughness of Intellectual Attainment, . 438 

Professor Edward Forbes on the Educational Uses of Museums, . . 443 

Prince Albert on the Educational Claims of Science, .... 444 

Dr. Hill on the Cultivation of the Senses, ...... 445 

Professor Goldwin Smith on Classical and Modern Culture, . . . 449 

Dr. Acland on Early Physiological Study, 450 

Lord Macaulay on the Study of Classical Languages, . . . . 451 

.EXTRACTS FROM EVIDENCE BEFORE THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS' COMMISSION. 

Evidence of Dr. Carpenter, . . . . . . .452 

Evidence of Sir Charles Lycll, 459 

Evidence of Dr. Faraday, . 462 

Evidence of Professor Owen . . . . . . 466 

Evidence of Dr. Hooker, . ..... 470 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 



" If we coruutt reason, experience, and the common testtmany of ancteal 
and modern times, none of our intellectual studies tend to cultivate a smaller 
number of the faculties, in a more partial or feeble manner, than Mathematics. 
This is acknowledged by every writer on Education of the least pretension to 
judgment and experience." Sir William Hamilton. 

From the '* vast preponderance of encouragement to Classical reading which 
the condition of English culture offers," it will be seen " how important it is 
for those who know that mere Classical reading is a narroio and enfeebling Edu~ 
cation to resist any attempts to add to this preponderance, by diminishing the 
encouragement which the University gives to studies of a larger or more vigor- 
ous kind." Dr. Whzwell. 

*' To suppose that deciding whether a Mathematical or a Classical Education 
is the best, is deciding what is the proper curriculum, is much the same thing 
as 'o suppose that the whole of dietetics lies in ascertaining whether or not 
bread is more nutritive than potatoes." Herbert Spencer. 



INTRODUCTION 



All educational inquiries assume that man is individ- 
ually improvable, and therefore collectively progressive. 
Through varied experiences he is slowly civilized, and 
there is a growth of knowledge with the course of ages. 
But while thought is ever advancing, it is the nature of 
institutions to fix the mental states of particular times ; and 
there hence arises a tendency to conflict between growing 
ideas and the external arrangements whicl/are designed to 
express and embody them. Thought refuses to be sta- 
tionary ; institutions refuse to change, and war Is the coij- 
sequence. 

This fact is familiarly illustrated in the case of govern- 
ment. Ideas and character, having outgrown the arbitrary 
institutions of the remoter past, there has arisen between 
them an antagonism, of the results of v/hich modern his- 
tory is full. So, too, religious conceptions having devel- 
oped beyond the ecclesiastical organizations to which 
they at first gave rise, a struggle arose in the sixteenth 
century, which, resulting in the Protestant Reformation, 
has persisted under various aspects to the present time. 
And so It Is also with the traditional system.s of mental 
culture. Educational institutions which have been be- 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

queathed to us by the past, and which may have been 
suited to their times, have fallen out of harmony with the 
intellectual necessities of modern life, and a conflict has 
arisen which is deepening in intensity with the rapid 
growth of knowledge and the general progress of society. 

The friends of educational improvement maintain that 
the system of culture which prevails in our higher institu- 
tions of learning, and which is limited chiefly to the ac- 
quisition of the mathematics, and of the ancient languages 
and literature, was shaped ages ago in a state of things so 
widely different from the present, that it has become inad- 
equate to existing requirements. They urge that since its 
establishment the human mind has made immense ad- 
vances ; has changed its attitude to nature and entered 
upon a new career ; that realm after realm of new truth 
has been discovered ; that ideas of government, religion, 
and society have been profoundly modified, and that new 
revelations of man's powers and possibilities, and nobler 
expectations of his future, have arisen. As man is a being 
of action, it is demanded that his education shall be a 
preparation for action. As the highest use of knowledge 
is for guidance, it is insisted that our Collegiate establish- 
ments shall give a leading place to those subjects of study 
which will afford a better preparation for the duties and 
work of the age in which we live. 

The adherents of the traditional system reply that all 
this is but the unreasoning clamor of a restless and inno- 
vating age, which wholly misconceives the true aim of a 
higher culture, and would reduce every thing to the stand- 
ard of a low and sordid utility. They maintain that 
knowledge is to be acquired not on account of its capabil- 
ity of useful application, but for its own intrinsic interest ; 
that the purpose of a liberal education is not to prepare for 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. n 

a vocation or profession, but to train the intellectual facul- 
ties. They, therefore, hold that Meiital Discipline is the 
true object of a higher culture, and that for its attainment 
the study of the ancient classics and mathematics is superior 
to all other means. From the tone assumed by its defend- 
ers, when speaking of its incomparable fitness to develop all 
the mental faculties, it might be inferred that this scheme 
of study was formed by the help of a perfected science 
of the human mind. Nothing, however, could be more 
erroneous. Not only was that system devised ages ante- 
rior to any thing like true mental science, but it antedates 
by centuries the whole body of modern knowledge. There 
was abundance of vague metaphysics, but hardly a germ 
of that positive knowledge of the laws of mind, which 
could serve as a vahd basis of education. The predomi- 
nant culture of modern times had its origin, more than 
eight hundred years ago, in a superstition of the middle 
ages. A mystical reverence was attached to the sacred 
number seven^ which was supposed to be a key to the or- 
der of the universe. That there were seven cardinal vir- 
tues, seven deadly sins, seven sacraments, seven days in 
the week, seven metals, seven planets, and seven apertures 
in a man's head, was believed to afford sufficient reason 
for making the course of liberal study consist of seven 
arts, and occupy seven years. Following another fancy 
about the relation of three to four, in a certain geometri- 
cal figure, these seven arts were divided into two groups. 
The first three. Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric, comprised 
what was called the Trivium ; and the remaining four, 
Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music (the latter 
as a branch of Arithmetic), formed the Quadrlvium. This 
scheme has been handed down from age to age, and with 
but slight changes, still predom.inates in the higher institu 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

tioiis of learning, and still powerfully reacts upon the infe- 
rior schools. 

Passing by various embarrassing -questions suggested by 
the hypothesis that the one perfect method of bringing the 
human mind to its highest condition has not only been 
found, but has been actually organized into educational 
institutions for hundreds of years — a hypothesis which dis- 
credits the whole movement of modern intellect in its ed- 
ucational bearings — let us take up this question of mental 
discipline. The subject is not only intrinsically impor- 
tant, but its importance is greatly heightened when an old 
and widely-established system, challenged by the spirit of 
the age, yields the point of the usefulness of the knowl- 
edge it imparts, and offers as its sole defence its superior 
merits as a system of mental training ; and still more im- 
portant does it become when the idea is so constantly and 
vehemently iterated as to acquire all the force and tenacity 
of a superstition, and breed a regular cant of education, 
which serves as the stereotyped apology for numberless 
indefensible projects and crudities of instruction. The 
writer recently opened a huge volume on Heraldr}^, and 
the very first passage which struck his eye in the preface, 
urged the claims of that subject to more general study oh 
the ground of its excellence as a mental discipline. 

I propose, in the present Introduction, first^ to point out 
the defects of the traditional system as a means of disci- 
plining the mind ; and, second^ to show the superior claims 
of scientific education for this purpose. 

The claims put forth in behalf of the prevailing scheme 
are as multitudinous and diverse as the tastes and capaci- 
ties of those who offer them. — a natural result, perhaps, 
in the absence of any considerations so decisive as to 
command general agreement ; but those most comm.oniy 



r.IENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. r 

urged arc, that the grammatical acquisition of the dead 
languages best disciplines the memory and judgment, and 
the study of mathematics the reason. Let us briefly notice 
these points Erst : 

That the acquisition of words exercises the memory is 
of course true — those of living languages as well as dead 
ones, but their assumed merit for discipline raises the ques- 
tion hoiu they exercise it. Memory is the capability of 
recalling past mental impressions, and depends chiefly 
upon the relations subsisting among these impressions in 
the mind. If they are arbitrary, the power of recall de- 
pends upon multiplicity of repetition, and involves a maxi- 
mum outlay of mental force in acquisition. If, however, 
ideas are arranged in the mind in a natural order of con- 
nection and dependence, this principle becomes the most 
important element in commanding past acquisitions. The 
conditions are then reversed ; the outlay of effort in ac- 
quisition is reduced, and the power of recall increased. 
Now the memory cultivated in the common acquirement 
of language, is of this lowest kind. The relation be- 
tween words and the ideas, or objects, of which they are 
the signs, is accidental and arbitrary. Although philologi- 
cal science is beginning dimly to trace out certain natural 
relations between words and the things they signify, it 
will not be claimed that this is made at all available in the 
ordinary study of Latin and Greek ; indeed, the most 
thorough-going advocates of these studies claim that their 
disciplinal value is in the ratio of the naked retentive 
. ov/er which they call into exercise. But the memory 
r.annot be best disciplined by a mental procedure which 
neglects its highest law. If the power of recovering past 
states of consciousness depends upon the natural and ne- 



6 IN riu)i)i criDN. 

ccssai V (."iiniuH'tlDiis ;imtiii|', iilf;is, dun lliosc stiulics ;nc 
best suited i'or a rational iliscipliiie oi this power wliieli 
involve these iiatmal relations among t^hjeets. C)n both 
grounds the seienees aie pielerahle to dead languages, as 
instiuniciUs oleulture. I'or it' it he held desirable nierely 
to task the niemoiy by a dead pull at aibitraiy laets (and 
(here aie not wanting tluvse who hold to this notion of 
discipline), then it is otilv neeessai\ to use the iiHunneiablc 
laets ot" science, without ie|\ard to older ; but when wo 
i.ikv m(o account the inuuense impiutancc ol n\cthodi/.iiig 
mental acnuisilion, and utilizing the piinciple ot' natural 
associaiitm among the elements oi' knowledge, the im- 
nuMsui.iMc superiority oi" the sciences for this purpose be- 
comes at once ap[>aient. This is happilv illustrated by 
some observations ot" Dr. Arnold, respect in;', the memory 
ol" geo!\raphv. lie savs : 

*■'■ And this deeper knowledge becomes lar easier to re- 
member. For my o\\ n part I Jind it extremely ditlicult 
to renuMuber the positions of towns, when I have no other 
association with them than their situations relatively to 
each other. l?ut let n\e once understand the real geogra- 
phy of a country — its iMganic structure, if I n\ay so call 
it ; the form o( its skeleton, that is, oi its hills ; the mag- 
nilvule ami oomse of its veins and arteries, that is, of its 
streams and rivers ; let me conceive of it as a whole made 
up of connected parts ; and then the positions of towns 
viewed in ret'erence to these parts becomes at once easih' 
renuMubered, and livelv and intelligible besides." 

If now it be said that it is luu mere men»or\ oi woids 
that is contended tor, but the discipline and judgment 
afforded by the gr;immatical study oi' the structure of lan- 
guage, the crushing answer is that a dead language is un- 
necessarv for this discipline, which is tar better secured bv 
the systenuitic study and tlu>rou!\h logical analvsis oi' the 



MI.N'I'AL IJISCII'I.INI', IN I.DilCA'I'ION. 



7 



VI rii:u iilar tongue* Perhaps there Is no \)o\iii in eihuation 
in which there is so universal and intensq an agreement 
among incKipeiulent thinkers, as in conchimning the folly 
of beginning the :ic(|uisition of foreign languages, living 
or dead, hy (lit; study of their grammar — the method 
in general use am<jng those who defejid it as a mental 
discipline. The usual school-practice of thrusting the 
young into the grammar, even of their iiaiive tongue, is 
well known to he one of the most eflicient means of the 
artificial prculuction of stupidity ; hut the hahit of intro- 
ducing them to a f(;reign lajiguage through this gateway, 
is a still more flagrant outrage. 'I'he natural method of 
acquiring speech is the way we all acquire it ; the knowl- 
edge of words first, then their combination into sentences, 
to he followed hy the practical use of the language ; rules 
and precepts may then be iiUtflligcntly applied. Hut .to 
begin with these is to put the complex before the sinijjlc, 
the abstract before the concrete,- generals before particu- 
lars, and, in short, to invert the natural order of mental 
processes, and to work ilut niind backward, under the 
pica of disciplining it. An eminent living authority in 
philology. Professor Jyatham, in a lecture before the R(;yal 
Institutifjn of (ireat Uritain, observed : > 

" In the ordinary teaching of what is called the granmiar 
of the JOnglish language, there are two elements. There is 
something professed to be taught wliich is not ; and there is 
something which, from being already learned better than 
any man can teach it, re(|uires no lessons. 'J'he latter is 
the use and practice of the JCnglish tongue. The former 
is the principles of grammar. The facts, that language 
is more <jr less regular ; that there is such a thing as gram- 
mar ; that certain expressi<Mis should be avoided, are all 
matters worth knowing. And they arc all taught even by 
the worst method of teaching. liut are these the propei 

''■ Sec I'rof, Jcwcll'a alilc ii;i|i(T oh tlic " Logical Aiialy,i:i iif tiif lilii^liult 
Lainjua[;c," in frocxiliii;;'! (/f N. Y. liiiivcnjiy C'nivcji al;i;ii. 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

objects of systematic teaching ? Is the importance of 
their acquisition equivalent to the time, the trouble, and 
the displacement of more valuable subjects, which are in- 
volved in their explanation ? I think not. Gross vulgar- 
ity of language is a fault to be prevented ; but the proper 
prevention is to be got from habit — not rules. The pro- 
prieties of the English language are to be learned, like the 
proprieties of English manners, by conversation and inter- 
course ; and a proper school for both is the best society in 
which the learner is placed. If this be good, systematic 
teaching is superfluous ; if bad, insufficient. There are 
unquestionably points where a young person may doubt as 
to the grammatical propriety of a certain expression. In 
this case let him ask some one older, and more instructed. 
Grammar, as an art^ is undoubtedly the art of speaking 
and writing correctly — but then, as an art, it is only re- 
quired for foreign languages. For our own we have the 
necessary practice and familiarity. 

" The true claim of English grammar, to form part and 
parcel of an English education, stands or falls with the 
value of the philolrr>;'Cal knowledge to which grammatical 
studies may serve as an introduction, and with the value 
of scientific grammar, as a disciplinal study. I have no 
fear of being supposed to undervalue its importance in this 
respect. Indeed, in assuming that it is very great, I also 
assume that wherever grammar is studied as grammar, the 
language which the grammar so studied should represent, 
must be the mother tongue of the student, whatever that 
mother tongue may be. This study is the study of a 
theory ; and for this reason it should be complicated as lit- 
tle as possible by points of practice. For this reason a 
marCs mother tongue is the best medium for the demerits of sci- 
entific philology^ simply because it is the one which he 
knows best in practice." 

It thus appears that to secure the disciplinary uses of 
gi'ammatical study, not even a foreign language is neces- 
sary, much less a dead one. 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. n 

When it is remembered that the Hebrew language 
had no grammar till a thousand years after Christ ; that 
the masterpieces of Greek literature were produced be- 
fore Aristotle first laid the grammatical foundations of 
that language ; that the Romans acquired the Greek 
without grammatical aid, by reading and conversation j 
that the most eminent scholars of the middle ages and 
later, Alfred, Abelard, Eeauclerc, Roger Bacon, Chau- 
cer, Dante, Petrarch, Lipsius, Buddeus, and the Scal- 
igers — Latin scholars, who have never since been sur- 
passed, learned this language without the assistance of 
grammar ; that Lilly's grammar, in doggerel Latin vers6, 
was thrust upon the English schools by royal edict of 
Henry VHL, against the vehement protest of mer^ like 
Ascham^ and that the decline of eminent Latinists in that 
country was coincident with the general establishment of 
this method of teaching ; that Dante, Petrarch, and Boc- 
caccio gave to the world their immortal v/orks two hun- 
dred years before the appearance of the first Italian gram- 
mar; that Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Addison, Pope, 
Young, Thomson, Johnson, Burns, and others, whose 
names will live as long as the English language, had not 
in their childhood learned any English grammar ; that 
Corneille, Moliere, La Fontaine, Pascal, Bossuct, Boi- 
leau, and Racine, wrote their masterpieces long before" 
the publication of any French grammar ; that men like 
Collet, Wolsey, Erasmus, Milton, Locke, Gibbon, Con- 
dillac, Lemare, Abbe Sicard, Basil Hall, Home Tooke, 
Adam Smith, and a host of others, have emphatically con- 
demned the method of acquiring language through the 
study of grammar ; that the most eminent masters of 
language, Demosthenes, Seneca, Malherbe, Clarendon, 
Montesquieu, Fenclon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Montaigne 



IG INTRODUCTION. 

Boileau, Dante, Galileo, Franklin, Gibbon, Robertson, 
Pope, Burns, Byron, and Moore, acknowledge that they 
attained their excellences of style by the study and imi- 
tation of the best models of writing ; and finally, that 
mere grammarians are generally bad writers : when we re- 
call facts like these, we can begin to rate at something like 
their true value the claims of the grammatical study of de- 
funct forms of speech for mental training. That there is a 
useful discipline in the critical study of language, as in 
the critical study of most other things, is not denied ; but 
that it has either the transcendent importance usually as- 
sumed, or that it cannot be substantially acquired by the 
mastery of modern tongues, is what the advocates of the 
dead languages have failed to prove. "'"' 

Let us now notice the discipline of mathematics, the 
claims of which to an important place in a liberal scheme 
of education are of course unquestionable. Dealing with 
conceptions of quantity under various forms of expression, 
and v/ith a varying application, to universal phenomena, 
they are an indispensable key to universal science, and 
their basis is, therefore, a broad and solid utility. But the 
devotees of tradition are not satisfied with this ; they make 
extravagant claims for mathematics, on the ground of 
the discipline they afford, and then usurp for them an edu- 
cational predominance to which they are not entitled. In 
their subordinate place they are invaluable ; as a too en- 
grossing subject of study, injurious. Mathematics are 
suited to form habits of continuous attention by dealing 
with trains of proof, to help the imagination steadily 
to grasp abstract relations, and to fam'iliarize the mind 

* For confirmation of the statements in this paragraph see " Marcel on Lan- 
guage," in two volumes. London : Chapman & Hall, 1853. It is not credita- 
ble to American education that this able work has not been republished here. 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. jj 

with a system of necessary truth. But they do not afford 
a complete exercise of the reasoning powers. They begin 
with axioms, self-evident truths, established principles, and 
proceed to their conclusions along a track each step of 
which is an intuitive certainty. But it so happens that in 
our mental dealings with the experiences of. life, the first, 
the most important, and most difficult thing is to get the 
data or premises from which to reason. The primary 
question is. What are the facts, the pertinent facts, and all 
the facts, which bear upon the inquiry ? This is the su- 
preme step ; for, until this is done, reasoning is futile, and 
it may be added that, when this is done, the formation^of 
conclusions is a comparatively simple process. Now 
mathematical training cannot help to this important pre- 
liminary work ; it leaves its cultivator to the blind accept- 
ance or blind rejection of his premises. Those, therefoi'e, 
who have exclusively pursued these studies, so as to form 
mathematical habits of thinking, have no preparation for 
the practical emergencies of thought, where contingencies 
are to be taken into account, where probable evidence is 
to be weighed, and conclusions from imperfect knowledge 
are to be formed and acted upon. . The pure mathema- 
tician is therefore liable to a one-sided and erratic judgment 
of affairs. An exclusive mathematical discipline must, 
therefore, be held as an actual disqualification for the work 
of life.- 

* Dugald Stewart remarks : " How accurate soever the logical process may 
be, if our first principles be rashly assumed, or if cur terms be indefinite and am- 
biguous, there is no absurdity so great that we may not be brought to adopt it ; 
and it unfortunately hapfcens that, while mathematical studies exercise the fac- 
ulty of reasoning or dedtrction, they give no employrrient to the other powers of 
the understanding concerned in the investigation of truth. On the contrary, 
they are apt to produce a facility in the admission of data, and a circumscription 
of the field of speculation by partial and arbitrary definitions. ... I think 1 
have observed a peculiar proncncss in mathematicians to avail themselves of 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

It is important to notice that, so far as the mode of ex- 
ercising the mind is concerned, mathematical discipline 
does not correct the defects of lingual discipline, but rather 
confirms them. We hence see how it was that mathemat- 
ics so perfectly harmonized with philology as to have been 
early and naturally incorporated with it in the same scheme 
of culture. Both begin with the unquestioning acceptance 
of data — axioms, definitions, rules ; both reason deduc- 
tively from foregone, assumptions, and therefore both ha- 
bituate to the passive acceptance of authority — the highest 
mental desideratum in the theological ages and establish- 
m(ints which gave origin to the traditional curriculum. 

To those familiar with the literature of this discussion, 
the objections here presented will not be new ; but there 
are certain considerations growing out of the recent prog- 
ress of thought, which have a powerful bearing upon the 
question, and which it is desirable now to present. And 
first, What is the real significance of the phrase ' discipline 
of the mind ' ? 

By mental discipline in education is meant, that sys- 
tematic and protracted exercise of the mentai powers 
which is suited to raise them to their highest degree of 
healthful capability, and impart a permanent direction to 

principles sanctioned by some imposing names, and tp avoid all discussion which 
might tend to an examination of ultimate truths, or involve a rigorous analysis 
o£ their ideas. ... In the course of my own experience I have not met 
vvltli a mere mathematician, who was not credulous to a fault ; credulous not 
only with respect to human testimony, but credulous also in matters of opinion ; 
and prone, on all subjects which he had not carefully studied, to repose too 
much faith in illustrations and consecrated names." Pascal also observes: "It 
is rare that mathematicians are observant, or that observant minds are mathe- 
matical, because mathematicians would treat matters of observation by rule of 
mathematic, and make themselves ridiculous by attempting to commence by 
definitions, and by principles." 



^ 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. j-, 

their activity. The mind takes a set or stamp from the 
character of the knowledge it acquires, and the mode of 
activity which these acquisitions involve, and, in this way, 
mental habits are formed. But, what is the basis of this 
great fact of mental habits, by which so spiritual an agency 
as mind becomes fettered ? It is a property of the organic 
constitution, and its consideration brings us down to the firm 
physiological basis of the whole subject. 

There are two methods of studying mind. The old 
metaphysical method simply takes note of the mental ef- 
fects which are manifested in consciousness, but modern 
psychology goes deeper, and takes into account the con- 
ditions under which these manifestations arise. It no 
longer admits of denial or cavil, that the Author of our 
being has seen fit to connect mind and intelligence with 
a nervous mechanism : in studying mental phenomena, 
therefore, in connection with this mechanism, we are stud- 
ying them in the relation which God has established, and, 
therefore, in the only true relation. There is still a pow- 
erful prejudice against this proceeding. Literature and 
Theology continue to pour their contempt upon that ' mat- 
ter' which infinite wisdom has consecrated to the high 
purpose of manifesting mental effects, while the scientific 
study of the organ of thought has been, until very re- 
cently, outlawed by the state.* Yet nothing is more cer- 
tain than that in future, mind is to be studied in connec- 
tion with the organism by which it is conditioned : when 
we begin to deal with the problem of mental discipline, 
metaphysics no longer avail ; it is the organism with 
which we have finally to deal. 

When it is said that the brain is the organ of the mind, 
it is meant that in thinking, remembering, reasoning, the 
brain acts. It is now admitted that all impressions made 

* Human dissections having been, until lately, illegal. 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

upon the brain, and all actions occurring within it, are ac- 
companied by physical changes. Thought usually goes on 
so quietly, and seems so far removed from bodily activity, 
that vi^e are easily betrayed into the notion that it is carried 
on in a region of pure spirit ; but this is far from being the 
truth. The changes of states of consciousness, the course 
of thought, and all processes of the understanding, are 
carried on by a constant succession of nerve-excitements 
and nerve-discharges. The brain is not a chaos of parts 
thrown together at random ; it consists of hundreds of 
millions of cells and fibres, organized into symmetrical or- 
der, so as to produce innumerable connections, crossings, 
and junctions of exquisite delicacy. The simple elements 
of mind are built up into complex knowledge by the law 
of association of ideas ; and the mental associations arc 
formed by combinations of currents in the brain, and are 
made permanent by the growth and modification of cells 
at the points of union. When a child associates the sight, 
weight, and ring of a dollar, with the written word and 
verbal sound that represent it so firmly together in its 
mind that any one of these sensations will instantly bring 
up the others, it is said to ' learn ' it. But the real fact of 
the case is, that the currents formed by visible impressions, 
vocal movements and sounds, are often repeated together, 
and are thus combined in the brain, and fixed by specific 
growths at their points of union, and in this way the men- 
tal associations are cemented by cerebral nutrition. And 
thus the child goes on multiplying its experiences of the 
properties of objects and of localities, persons, actions, 
conduct ; he observes, compares, contrasts, infers, and 
judges, and all this growing and complex mass of acquisi- 
tion is definitely combined in the grov/ing and perfecting 
organ of the mind. 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 



15 



The basis of educability, and hence of mental disci- 
pline, is, therefore, to be sought in the properties of that 
nervous substance by which mind is manifested. That 
basis is the law that cerebral effects are strengthened and 
made lasting by repetition. When an impression is made 
upon the brain, a change is produced, and an eiFect remains 
in the nerve substance; if it be repeated, the change is deep- 
ened, and the effect becomes more lasting. If we have a 
perception of an object, or if we perform an action only 
once, the nervous change is so slight that the idea may 
perhaps never reappear, and the act never be repeated ; 
if experienced twice, the tendency to recur is increased ; 
if many times, this tendency is so deepened, and the links 
of association become so extended, that the idea will be 
often obtruded into thought, and the action may take 
place involuntarily. Intellectual ' capacity ' is thus at 
bottom an affair of physical impressibility, or nervous ad- 
hesiveness. Regard being had to the law that all nutritive 
operations involve repose, cohesion or completeness of 
association depends upon repetition. Of course, constitu- 
tions differ widely in this property, some requiring many 
more repetitions than others, to secure acquirement.'^^ 
This view leads to important practical conclusions. 

* To illustrate the two modes of viewing mental phenomena, I will quote 
a couple of extracts from eminent authorities, reprobating the pernicious prac- 
tice of ' cramming ' for examinations. Dr. Whewell, content with the meta- 
physical method, observes : " I may add my decided opinion that no system of 
education which is governed entirely or even mainly by examinations, occupying 
short times with long intervening intervals, can ever be otherwise than bad 
mental discipline. Intellectual education requires that the mind should be ha- 
bitually employed in the acquisition of knowledge, with a certain considerable 
degree of clear insight and independent activity." 

Mr. Bain takes the psychological view, and reaches the vital dynamics of the 
case. He says : " The system of cramming is a scheme for making tempo 
rary acquisitions, regardless of the endurance of them. Excitable brains, that 



1 6 INTRODUCTION. 

When it is perceived that what we have to deal with 
in mental acquirement is organic processes, which have a 
definite time-rate of procedure, so that, however vigor- 
ously the currents are sustained by keeping at a thing, ac- 
quisition is not increased in the same degree ; when we see 
that new attainments are easiest and most rapid during 
early life — the time of most vigorous growth of the body 
generally ; that thinking exhausts the brain as really as 
working exhausts the muscles, and that rest and nutrition are 
as much needed in one case as the other ; when we see 
that rapidity of attainment and tenacity of memory involve 
the question of cerebral adhesions, and "note how widely 
constitutions differ in these capabilities, how they depend 
upon blood, stock, and health, and vary v/ith numberless 
conditions, we become aware how inexorably the problem 
of mental attainment is hedged round with limitations, and 
the vague notion that there are no bounds to acquisition 
except imperfect application disappears forever.* 

The doctrine of mental limitations, which we thus find 
grounded in the organic constitution, puts the philosophy of 
education at once on the basis of the economy of mental 
power. The student is constantly told that his time is 
limited, and exhorted not to waste it ; but his forces of 
acquisition are equally limited, and it becomes a question 
of still higher importance how to economize these, for it 

can command a very great concentration of force upon a subject, will be propor- 
tionably improved for the time being. By drawing upon the strength of the 
future, we are able to fix temporarily a great variety of impressions during the 
exaltation of cerebral power that the excitement gives. The occasion past, the 
brain must lie idle for a corresponding length of time, while a large portion of 
the excited impressions will gradually perish away. This system is exceedingly 
unfavorable to permanent acquisitions ; for these the brain should be carefully 
husbanded, and temporarily drawn upon. Every period of undue excitement and 
feverish susceptibility is a time of great waste for the plastic energy of the mind." 
* See page 348. 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 17 

is possible sedulously to save the moments while squander- 
ing half the energies of the mind in bad application. Ob- 
viously if intellectual power has its fixed bounds, the su- 
preme question is, How can the highest results be attained 
within those bounds ? 

Nature's method of economizing power is by repetition 
of actions in constantly varying conditions. The celes- 
tial order is maintained by endless repetition of axial and 
orbital revolutions. The operations of the world are car- 
ried on by using over and over again the same stock of re- 
sources ; matter and force circle round and round through 
the mineral, vegetable, and animal phases ; in the growing 
plant leaves undergo constant transformation into other 
organs, while the animal skull is formed of modified ver- 
tebral spines. And so in the unfoldings of the- mental 
world, Nature is constantly falHng back upon old acquisi- 
tions, and using them to produce new efliccts. In the pro- 
cess of acquirement, ideas and aptitudes once mastered are 
constantly wrought into higher and more complex combi- 
nations. The organ of thought being a vast reduplication 
of the same simple elements, the growth of thought re- 
sults from an endless repetition of the same simple opera- 
tions. 

The child, through numberless repetitions of effort, at 
length gets the aptitude of using its hands for ordinary 
purposes. But this faculty once secured, serves for life in 
all the ordinary emergencies of action. The necessity 
for new and varied movements involves no new acquisi- 
tions ; within the range of ordinary activity the early apti- 
tudes suffice. But if in any case manipulations of special 
delicacy and precision are required, as in learning to draw, 
a new acquisition must be made. Yet here the same 
thing occurs. The new acquirement may be utilized in 



1 8 INTRODUCTION. 

other similar applications ; if the child have first learned 
to draw, the aptitude will serve also in learning to write. 

Again, the instrumental performer, by long drill, ac- 
quires a great number of movements, according to the 
range of his musical sensibility, so that learning new pieces 
is but little else than new combinations of old sequences — 
the new acquisition being, in fact, but a new grouping of 
old acquisitions. So also in the purely intellectual opera- 
tions. In learning geometry, the mind having grasped 
the preliminary definitions, axioms, and postulates, uses 
them over and over in solving the successive problems ; 
while mathematical genius consists mainly in the ready 
ability to identify the old elements under the disguises of 
the new cases. In fixing the conception of a new min- 
eral, plant, or animal, the naturalist recalls the characteris- 
tics of known specimens which most nearly resemble them, 
and superadds to these the new features. The same thing 
holds in learning languages. Xhe mastery of Latin re- 
duces the labor of acquiring Italian, French, and Spanish, 
into which it largely enters j and we find new words to be 
easv in proportion as they consist of old familiar articula- 
tions. In historical studies, revolutions, campaigns, nego- 
tiations, and political measures, are repeated by the same 
nation at successive epochs, and by one government after 
another, so that a new history is but a varied reading of 
old ones ; the really new features bearing but a small 
proportion to those already fixed in the student's mind. 
The vast mental economy which would arise throughout 
civilization by the general adoption of decimal coinage, 
weights, and measures, is but another illustration of the 
principle ; a few simple arithmetical acquisitions would 
serve the requirements of all who deal with relations of 
quantity. In short, our reason has been aptly defined as 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 



19 



' the power of using old facts in new circumstances,' 
and this is the secret of the production of vast effects with 
Hmited resources.* 

Now this principle, as it affords the true key to intellec- 
tual progress, must become the organizing law of educa- 
tion. We find that extent of mental attainment depends, 
not alone upon intellectual effort, but upon the order of 
relations among objects of thought. Of course, menta 
capacity is the first factor in acquisition, but that being 
given, the scale of possible attainment depends absolutely 
upon the order of the course of study. Education cannot 
make capacity, but it controls the conditions by which the 
least or the most can be made of it. If the methods of 
study be such that the mind encounters broad breaks in its 
course, and is abruptly shifted into new lines of effort, so 
that past conceptions are not carried on to a progressive 
unfolding, mental groiyth is checked and power lost. The 
extent to which one fact or principle is a repetition or out- 
growth of another, in the serial relation of subjects, de- 
termines the rate of mental movement, which can only be- 
come steady and rapid in continuous ranges of effort. As 
in the outward world, the past creates the future along un- 
broken lines of dynamic sequence and causation, so in the 
mental world, there must be a corresponding continuity of 
movement by which the past creates the future in intellec- 
tual evolution. 

We have here the touchstone of educational svstems, 
and the fatal condemnation of the current theory of dis- 
cipline. How grossly that theory violates the law of men- 
tal economy, and, indeed, actually provides for waste of 
power, will be apparent by glancing briefly at its origin. 
The notion of mental g}-mnastics was borrowed from 

* For a fill] workiag out of this doctrine, see Bain's " Sensts and Intellect.** 



20 INTR-ODUCTION. 

that of bodily gymnastics. In early times, useful labor 
being regarded as menial and degrading, the superior classes 
sought the activity needed for health in various artificial 
exercises. The old Greek gymnastics was a system of 
athletic exercises cultivated for the attainment of physical 
development, and had' no reference to the preparation of 
men for the occupations of industry. The ancient philos- 
ophers held that it v/as as degrading to seek useful knowl- 
edge as to practise useful arts ; hence, subjects of study 
v/ere chosen as intellectual gymnastics and to acquire men- 
tal discipline, and this, not as a preparation for valuable 
mental labor, but as an end in itself. Not the game, but 
the excitement of the chase ; not the truth, but the exhilara- 
tion of its pursuit, were the mottoes of culture. , Under 
these circumstances no vulgar question of economy could 
arise ; mental pov/er was ostentatiously wasted, and with 
the necessary consequences — truth unsought was not 
found ; the ends of culture being ignored, there was neither 
conquest of nature nor progress of society. 

Not only does the principle of vicarious discipline in- 
volve enormous piental waste, but the system of studies 
employed to secure it grossly violates the great law of ac- 
quisition, which should become the basis of education. 
That system* is neither an outgrowth of the proper educa- 
tion of childhood, nor does.it flow on into the intellectual 
life of manhood : it is a foreign body of thought, uncon- 
genial and unafBliatcd, thrust into the academic period, and 
destroying the unity and continuity of the mental career. 
The young student is detached from all his early mental 
connections, expatriated to Qreece and Rome for a course 
of years, becomes charged with antiquated ideas, and then 
returns to resume his relation with the onflowing current 
of events in his own age. The radical defect of the tra- 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 21 

ditional system is, that it fails to recognize and grasp the 
controlhng ends of culture. Misled by the fallacy that, 
through a scheme of aimless exercises for discipline, men- 
tal power may be accumulated for nniversal application, it 
sees no necessity of organizing education with explicit 
reference to ultimate and definite purposes, and it thus for- 
feits its right of control over the educational interests of 
the time. For that there are great and well-defined aims, 
revealed with more clearness in this age than ever before, 
to which a higher mental culture should be subservient, 
does not admit of intelligent question. If the classical 
system grasps the conception of education, in its ends as 
well as its beginnings, as a preparation for the activities of 
life ; and of discipline, as the formation of habits to guide 
a constantly unfolding mental career ; and of knowledge, 
as consisting of a chain of relations, along which the mind 
is to move in accomplishing that career ; if it unfolds the 
order of the world, and puts the student in command of 
the ripest and richest results of past thinking ; if it quali- 
fies best for the relations of parenthood, citizenship, and 
the multiform responsibilities of social relation ; if it equips 
for the intelligent and courageous consideration of those 
vital questions which the progress of knowledge and aspi- 
ration are forcing upon society ; if it fits most effectually 
for these supreme ends, then, indeed, it affords a proper 
discipline for the needs of the time ; but if the student, 
after having faithfully mastered his collegiate tasks, finds 
upon entering the world of action, that his acquisitions are 
not available — that he has to leave them behind him and 
begin anew, then his preparation has been a bad one; time 
has been irretrievably lost, pov/er irrecoverably wasted, 
and the chances are high that he will give the go-by to 
modern knov/ledge, and thin down his intellectual life to 
the languid nursing; of his classical memories. 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

It is well known that, in numerous cases, the success 
of educated men may be directly traced to neglect of the 
regular college studies, or to their neutralization by the 
vigorous pursuit of other subjects ; and equally notorious 
that in numberless other cases, where the student has sur- 
rendered himself to college influences and conquered his 
curriculum^ exactly in proportion to his fidelity has been 
his defeat. He has mastered a disqualifying culture. In 
hundreds of instances it has been the lot of the writer to 
listen to expressions of bitter regret on the part of college 
graduates at the misdirected studies and the misapplied 
time which their ' liberal ' education had involved. " O 
that I had some knowledge of those imminent questions 
that are urging themselves on public attention, in place of 
my college lumber I " is a stereotyped exclamation in these 
cases. And this turn of expression discloses the worst 
aspect of the matter, for the lumber cannot be got rid of. 
The mind is not a reservoir to be emptied and refilled at 
pleasure. The student has not been preparing a soil for 
future sowing ; he has sown it, and to extirpate the roots 
will consume half a lifetime. In the most plastic period 
of receptivity he has been making acquisitions and forming 
habits which, by coercing his attention and engrossing his 
thoughts, will operate powerfully to obstruct subsequent 
mental operations ; for if they do not help, they must inev- 
itably hinder. 

In the preceding pages, after pointing out some of the 
•special disciplinary defects of the traditional scheme of 
study, I have endeavored to show that in its very conception 
of mental training there is involved enormous waste of 
power, and in its course of study a total non-recognition 
of the great law by which alone the highest mental at- 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 2-^ 

tainment can be reached. I have also shown that this 
erroneous conception of discipline, by ignoring the great 
ends of culture, and the adaptation of studies to them, 
not only wastes power, but gives a false preparation fo'- 
life. It remains now to indicate how these errors and de 
fects may be remedied by scientific education. 

Let it be remembered that this culture does not deny 
the importance of mental discipline, but only the wasteful 
policy of vicarious discipline. The question has three as- 
pects. The ancients employed the useless fact A for dis- 
ciplinary purposes, and ignored the useful fact B. The 
adherents of the current theory propose to learn first the 
useless fact A to get the discipline necessary to acquire 
the useful fact B ; while a rational system ignores useless 
A and attacks B at once, making it serve both for knowl- 
edge and discipline. The ancient view was more reason- 
able than that which has grown out of it. It wanted one 
acquisition, and it made it ; the prevailing method wants 
one, and makes two ;" and as it costs as much effort to 
learn a useless fact as a useful one, by this method half 
the power is wasted. 

The moment that the conception of value attaches 
to power-, the idea of its economy inevitably arises, and 
this is fatal to its vicarious application. Hence gymnas- 
tics are never thought of as a preparation for industrial 
occupation. The employer who should resort to them 
would quickly come to bankruptcy, for he knows that the 
laborer has but a limited amount of power, all of which it 
is necessary to utilize ; and he understands that the needed 
aptness comes in the regular course of occupation, and in 
that way alone. In the world of business, where results 
become quickly apparent, and a wrong policy works speedy 
disaster, the notion of discipline for a special activity, and 



24 



INTRODUCTION. 



not through it, could not be entertained, and it only lingers 
in the world of mind and education because there effects 
are more remote, complex, and indefinite, and the conse- 
quences of a wrong principle are less readily detected. 
With the grooving perception of the relation between 
human thought and human life, it will be seen that by far 
the most priceless of all things is mental power ; while one 
of the highest offices of education must be strictly to econ- 
omize and wisely to expend it. Science made the basis 
of culture, will accomplish this result. 

We have affirmed the broad principle of mental limita- 
tions, but let none suppose that its necessary corollary is 
narrow and stinted mental results. It has been explained 
how this consequence is to be escaped. A limited outlay 
of energy with results so vast as to seem out of all pro- 
portion with it, is exactly the miraculous problem which 
Nature has solved. It was at first supposed that prodig- 
ious quantities of power were required to work the At- 
lantic cable — an error which probably led to its destruc- 
tion ; but electricians have been recently startled by the 
discovery that the force generated in a lady's thimble, or 
even in a percussion-cap, is sufficient to operate the ocean 
telegraph. The lesson of this experience is, that a knowl- 
edge of the laws of power is essential to prevent waste of 
power J and this is no more true in physical dynamics than 
in mental. Let none indulge apprehensions that this doc- 
trine of limits to acquirement darkens the future of educa- 
tion, or derogates from man's mental dignity. What the 
human mind has already accomplished is our starting-point. 
Working waywardly, in isolation, by arbitrary methods, 
upon chaotic materials, and in ignorance of the mighty 
secret of its power, grand results have nevertheless been 
achieved, and they are the indices of attainment under the 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 



25 



worst conditions. But in the new revelation of a cosmi- 
cal order, and of the correlation and interdependence of all 
truth, Science utters a pregnant prophecy of the mind's 
future destiny, and vindicates her right to take control of 
its future unfolding. ■*• 

The ideal of the higher education demanded by the 
present age, especially in this country, where it is becom- 
ing most general, is a scheme of study, which, while it 
represents the present state of knowledge, and affords 
a varied cultivation and a harmonious discipline, shall at 
the same time best prepare for the responsible work of 
life. For this, the study of languages and mathematics is 
necessary, but far from sufficient. Other sciences arc to 
be supplied and a curriculum framed, which, conforming to 
the true logical order of subjects on the one hand, shall 
equally conform to the order of unfolding the mental 
faculties on the other, thus reaching an integral discipline 
through living and applicable knowledge. 

There is great significance in the fact that the pre- 
vailing higher culture is without a foundation. Profess- 
ing to devote itself exclusively to the moulding and evo- 
lution of mind — sinking knowledge itself into nothing- 
ness in com.parison with this effect — its method does not 
reach back to those beginnings of culture which far oJt- 
weigh in importance all subsequent action. And this is 
no trifling criticism of that method. Is it possible for a 
truly philosophical system of training the mental powers 
to have been orcranized for centuries in all the higher in- 
stitutions, and not have reacted with controlling pov/er 
upon the processes of primary instruction ? Here a true 
method 7nitst begin, and here scientific education does be- 
gin. Com.mencing early, and commencing with Nature, it 
lays the foundation of culture in the systematic exercise of 



26 INTRODUCTION. 

the observing powers. In childhood there is a vast capa- 
bility of accumulating simple facts. The higher forms of 
mental activity not having come into exercise, the vi^hole 
plastic power of the brain is devoted to the storing up of 
perceptions, while the vigor of cerebral growth insures the 
highest intensity of mental adhesiveness. The capability 
of grasping relations being low, it makes but little differ- 
ence at first what objects are presented to attention ; words 
or things, v/ith meaning or without, and in the most arbi- 
trary order, stick readily in the memory. Skilful guidance 
at this period is of the very highest importance. When 
curiosity is freshest, and the perceptions keenest, and 
memory most impressible, before the maturity of the re- 
flective powers, the opening mind should be led to the art 
of noticing the aspects, properties, and simple relations 
of the surrounding objects of Nature. This should be 
guided into a growing habit, and the young pupil gradually 
trained to know how to observe, and what to observe 
among all the objects of its unfolding experience. It 
should be encouraged to collect many of the little curiosi- 
ties which awaken its attention, and required carefully to 
preserve them ; but to do all this judiciously is delicate 
work. The custodian of the child must know something 
of the objects of Nature, and much of the nature of the 
young pupil. Above all other things, teachers qualified to 
do this work are the desperate need of the age. To per- 
fect the object-method, and train instructors to its discrim- 
inating use, is one of the great functions of Normal 
Schools, and must become the practical basis of a rational 
system of education. Let it be remembered that there is 
nothing forced or artificial here : the scenes of childish 
pleasure and exuberant activity furnish the objects of 
thought. In creatino; an interest in these thincrs a bent is 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 



27 



given in the true direction ; the valuable habit of observing 
and seekino; is formed, while the numberless disconnected 
shreds of knowledge are incipient acquisitions, which will 
grow with time into the ripened forms of science. 

With such a preparation, the transition is natural to the 
regular study of the sciences, in which the observing and 
reasoning powers are to be systematically cultivated. For 
this purpose the first to be taken up are mathematics, phys- 
ics, or natural philosophy, and chemistr}', as they deal 
with the clearest and simplest conceptions, and depend 
upon the fewest and most definite conditions. The adap- 
tation of mathematics to cultivate deductive reasoning has 
been noticed. Physics trains equally to accuracy and 
precision of thought ; but, beginning with observation, it 
exercises the reason inductively. From particulars we 
pass to generals ; from observed facts to principles, by the 
mental process of induction, which is a powerful instru- 
mentality. When we contemplate the vast extent of the 
facts which form the body of the various sciences, and the 
mpjrvellous rapidity with which they are still accumulating, 
the task of their acquisition seems appalling, and uttei'ly 
beyond all grasp of the intellect. But there is an order 
of Nature by which individual facts are connected and 
bound together, and there is a corresponding capacity 
in the human mind of seizing upon those relations, oi 
binding the facts into groups, and of dealing with them, 
as it were, at wholesale or in masses. This is the fac 
ulty of generahzation, by which wide-reaching principles 
replace or represent the infinitude of details, which they 
include. Indeed, the advance of science essentially con- 
sists in the successive establishment of such general prin- 
ciples which rise one above another in higher and higher 
stages, until a few simple laws are found to explain and 



28 INTRODUCTION. 

represent the wide range of phenomena to which thej 
apply. But now mark, that while in this way knowledge 
is simplified, the mind is called into higher action. The 
abstraction of a common law from many facts, while it 
relieves the memory of the burden of a large portion of 
them, makes a greater demand upon the understanding. 
In proportion as knowledge is compressed in bulk, its 
quality becomes, as it were, more intense ; and just to the 
degree to v/hich this operation is carried, is greater intel- 
lectual effort required to master it. Thus, in gaining com- 
mand of the facts of nature and rising to a comprehension 
of the order of the universe, we are at the same time se- 
curing the highest and most salutary form of mental disci- 
pline ; and a form of it, it may be added, for which the 
traditional system of culture makes no provision. 

The physical sciences, moreover, afford a discipline in 
deductive reasoning, the same as mathematics, but of a 
still more valuable character. For while mathematics 
deals with the smallest number of ideas, those of space and 
number, which may be abstracted entirely from all mate- 
rial existence, physics includes, in addition to these, the 
conceptions of matter and force, although it deals with 
them in their universal properties and forms ; and it thus 
comes nearer to the realities of experience. Deduction is 
the most common and practical form of mental activity. 
We are constantly reasoning from our general notions or 
opinions to particular facts and circumstances. Induction 
lays the mental foundation by showing us how correctly 
to arrive at these general notions ; deduction guides their 
constant application ; — the physical sciences afford the 
best *raining-ground for both. 

It is needless to dilate here upon the various benefits, 
moral as well as intellectual, to be gained by the system- 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 29 

atic pursuit of physical studies,- as they are abundantly 
illustrated in the various lectures of the present volume. 
I mav refer, however, to their great value in an experi- 
mental point of view. They afford scope for the keenest 
and closest observation ; they link thought to action, and 
brina; the results of thlnkinq- to inexorable tests. 

The m.ental advantages to be derived from a more thor- 
ough study of the physical sciences have been very clearly 
and impressively presented in a late discourse by Air. John 
Stuart Mill,"" and his view so strongly confirms the pres- 
ent argument as to justify extended quotation : 

" The most obvious part of the value of scientific in- 
struction, the mere information that it gives, speaks for it- 
self. We are born into a v/orld which we have not made ; 
a world whose phenomena take place according to fixed 
laws, of which we do not bring any knowledge into the 
world with us. In such a world we are appointed to live, 
and in it all our work is to be done. Our whole working 
power depends on knowing the laws of the world — in 
other words, the properties of the things which we have 
to work with, and to work among, and to work upon. 
We may and do rely, for the greater part of this knowl- 
edge, on the fev/ who in each department make its acqui- 
sition their main business in life. But unless an elemen- 
tary knowledge of scientific truths is diffused among the 
public, they never know what is certain and what is not, 
or who are entitled to speak with authority and who are 
not : and they either have no faith at all in the testimony 
of science, or are the ready dupes of charlatans and im- 
postors. They alternate between ignorant distrust, and 
blind, often misplaced, confidence. Besides, who is there 
who would not wish to understand the meaning of the 
common physical facts that take place under his eye ? 

* Inaugural Address delivered to the University of St. Andrew, February 
I, 1867. By John Stuart Mill. 



30 



INTRODUCTION. 



Who would not wish to know why a pump raises water, 
why a lever moves heavy weights, why it is hot at the 
tropics and cold at the poles, why the moon is sometimes 
dark and sometimes bright, what is the cause of the tides ? 
Do we not feel that he v/ho is totally ignorant of these 
things, let him be ever so skilled in a special profession, is 
not an educated man but an ignoramus ? It is surely no 
small part of education to put us in intelligent possession 
of the most important and most universally interesting 
facts of the universe, so that the world which surrounds 
us may not be a sealed book to us, uninteresting because 
unintelligible. This, however, is but the simplest and 
most obvious part of the utility of science, and the part 
which, if neglected in youth, may be the most easily made 
up for afterward. It is more important to understand the 
value of scientific instruction as a training and disciplining 
process, to fit the intellect for the proper work of a human 
being. Facts are the materials of our knowledge, but the 
mind itself is the instrument : and it is easier to acquire 
facts, than to judge what they prove, and hov/, through 
the facts which wc ;:now, to get to those which vi'e want 
to know. 

" The most incessant occupation of the human intellect 
throughout life is the ascertainment of truth. We are 
always needing to know what is actually true about some- 
thing or other. It is not given to us all to discover great 
general truths that are a light to all men and to future 
generations ; though with a better general education the 
number of those who could do so would be far greater 
than it is. But we all require the ability to judge between 
the conflicting opinions which are offered to us as vital 
truths ; to choose what doctrines we will receive in the 
matter of religion, for example ; to judge whether we 
ought to be Tories, Whigs, or Radicals, or to what length 
it is our duty to go with each ; to form a rational convic- 
tion on great questions of legislation and internal policy, 
and on the manner in which our country should behave to 
dependencies and to foreign nations. And the need we 
have of knowing how to discriminate truth, is not con- 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 



31 



fined to the larger truths. All through life it is our most 
pressing interest to find out the truth about all the matters 
we are concerned with. If we are farmers we want to 
find what will truly improve our soil ; if merchants, what 
will truly influence the markets of our commodities ; if 
judges, or jurymen, or advocates, who it was that truly 
did an unlawful act, or to whom a disputed right truly be- 
longs. Every time we have to make a nev/ resolution or 
alter an old one, in any situation in life, we shall go wrong 
unless we know the truth about the facts on which our 
resolution depends. Now, however different these searches 
for truth may look, and however unlike they really are in 
their subject-matter, the methods of getting at truth, and 
the tests of truth, are in all cases much the same. There 
are but two roads by which truth can be discovered : ob- 
servation, and reasoning ; observation, of course, including 
experiment. We all observe, and we all reason, and 
therefore, more or less .successfully, we all ascertain truths: 
but most of us do it very ill, and could not get on at all 
were we not able to fall back on others v/ho do it better. 
If we could not do it in any degree, we should be mere 
instruments in the hands of those who could : they v/ould 
be able to reduce us to slavery. Then how shall we best 
learn to do this ? By being shown the way in which it 
has already been successfully done. The processes by 
which truth is attained, reasoning and observation, have 
been carried to their greatest known perfection in the 
physical sciences. As classical literature furnishes the 
most perfect types of the art of expression, so do the 
physical sciences those of the art of thinking. Mathe- 
matics, and its application to astronomy and natural philos- 
ophy, are the most complete example of the discovery of 
truths by reasoning ; experimental science, of their discov- 
ery by direct observation. In all these cases we know 
that we can trust the operation, because the conclusions 
to which it has led have been found true by subsequent 
trial. It is by the studv of these, then, that we may hope 
to qualify ourselves for distinguishing truth, in cases where 
there do not exist the same readv means of verifi.cation. 



32 INTRODUCTION. 

" In what consists the principal and most characteristic 
(lifFcrcnce between one human intellect and another ? In 
their ability to judge correctly of evidence. Our direct 
perceptions of truth are so limited ; we know so few 
things by immediate intuition, or, as it used to be called, 
by simple apprehension — that we depend for almost all our 
valuable knowledge, on evidence external to itself; and 
most of us are very unsafe hands at estimating evidence, 
v/here an appeal cannot be made to actual eyesight. The 
intellectual part of our education has nothing more impor- 
tant to do than to correct or mitigate this almost universal 
infirmity — this summary and substance of nearly all purely 
intellectual weakness. To do this with effect needs all 
the resources which the most perfect system of intellec- 
tual training can command. Those resources, as every 
.teacher knows, are but of three kinds : first, models ; sec- 
ondly, rules ; thirdly, appropriate practice. The models of 
the art of estimating evidence are furnished by science ; 
the rules are suggested by science ; and the study of sci- 
ence is the most fundamental portion of the practice. . . . 
The logical value of experimental science is comparatively 
a new subject, yet there is no intellectual discipline more 
important than that which the experimental sciences afford. 
Their whole occupation consists in doing well, what 
all of us, during the whole of life, are engaged in doing, 
for the most part badly. All men do not affect to be 
reasoners, but all profess, and really attempt, to draw in- 
ferences from experience : yet hardly any one, who has 
not been a student of the physical sciences, sets out with 
any just idea of what the process of interpreting expe- 
rience really is. If a fact has occurred once or oftener, 
and another fact has followed it, people think they have 
got an experiment, and are well on the road toward show- 
ing that the one fact is the cause of the other. If they 
did but know the immense amount of precaution neces- 
sary to a scientific experiment ; with what sedulous care 
the accompanying circumstances are contrived and varied, 
so as to exclude every agency but that which is the sub- 
ject of the experiment — or, when disturbing agencies can- 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. oo 

not be excluded, the minute accuracy with which their 
influence is calculated and allowed for, in order that the 
residue may contain nothing but what is due to the one 
agency under examination ; if these things were attended 
to, people would be much less easily satisfied that their 
opinions have the evidence of experience ; many popular 
notions and generalizations which are in all mouths, would 
be thought a great deal less certain than they are supposed 
to be ; but we should begin to lay the foundation of really 
experimental knowledge, on things which are now the 
subjects of mere vague discussion, where one side finds as 
much to say and says it as confidently as another, and 
each person's opinion is less determined by evidence than 
by his accidental interest or prepossession. In politics, for 
instance, it is evident to whoever comes to the study from 
that of the experimental sciences, that no political conclu- 
sions of any value for practice can be arrived at by direct 
experience. Such specific experience as we can have, 
serves only to verify, and even that insufficiently, the con- 
clusions of reasoning. Take any active force you please 
in politics, take the liberties of England, or free trade ; 
how should we know that either of these things conduced 
to prosperity, if we could discern no tendency in the 
things themselves to produce it ? If we had only the evi- 
dence of what is called our experience, such prosperity as 
we enjoy might be owing to a hundred other causes, and 
might have been obstructed, not promoted, by these. All 
true political science is, in one sense of the phrase, a priori^ 
being deduced from the tendencies of things, tendencies 
known either through our general experience of human 
nature, or as the result of an analysis of the course of his- 
tory, considered as a progressive evolution. It requires, 
therefore, the union of Induction and deduction, and the 
mind that is equal to It must have been well disciplined in 
both. But familiarity with scientific experiment at least 
does the useful service of inspiring a wholesome skepticism 
about the conclusions which the mere surface of experience 
suggests." 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

The discipline of observation and strict reasoning af- 
forded by the exact sciences, mathematics, physics, and 
chemistry, pure and applied, being secured, we then pass 
to the study of the biological sciences, botany, zoology^ 
physiology, geology. A new order of truths and new cir- 
cumstances of knowledge are here encountered, to which the 
sciences just considered are an indispensable introduction, 
but for which, the mental habits they form are not an ad- 
equate preparatii)n. We are still carefully to observe, still 
to reason from facts to general principles, but the facts, 
though equally positive, are now so different — so complex, 
inaccessible, and indefinite, as to embarrass inference, and 
call for a higher exercise of the judgment. Experiment 
or active observation, which plays so prominent a part in 
physics and chemistry, is here greatly limited ; we cannot 
isolate the phenomena, and turn them round and round, 
and inside out, so as to compel a revelation of their 
secrets : hence, in proportion as the sources of error be- 
come more numerous and fallacies more insidious, a sub- 
tler exercise of the reason is demanded — more circumspec- 
tion in weighing evidence and checking conclusions, and a 
severer necessity for suspension of judgment. As the bio- 
logical sciences deal with the laws of life and the phenom- 
ena of living beings, man in his animal constitution and 
relations, is included in their subject-matter, while the prob- 
lems presented exercise the mind in a manner similar to 
the formation of judgments upon human affairs. Com- 
plete or demonstrative induction being impossible, we are 
compelled to form conclusions from only a part of the 
facts involved, and to anticipate the agreement of the rest. 
This is reasoning from analogy^ a powerful but perilous 
mode of proceeding ; one which we are compelled con- 
stantly to adopt in our mental treatment of the concerns 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. or 

of life, and for which biological studies are eminently suited 
to give the requisite discipline. 

Another advantage of the study of these subjects is 
afforded by the comprehensiveness and perfection of their 
classifications. No other subjects compare with zoology 
and botany in these respects. Not only do they furnish 
inexhaustible material for the exercise of memory, but by 
the presentation of facts in their natural relations, they 
exercise it in its highest and most perfect form. It is 
maintained by Agassiz that classifications in natural his- 
tory are but reports of the order of Nature — expressions 
of her profoundest plan ; and he even goes so far as to in- 
terpret them as a divine ideal programme of constructions, 
of which the living world is but the execution. However 
this may be, it is certain that they open to us the broadest 
view of the relations and harmonies of organic nature, 
and are best fitted to discipline the mind in dealing with 
large co-ordinations, and the comprehensive arrangement 
of objects of thought, whether in the arts, the professions, 
business, or science. But here, again, I may say, it is un- 
necessary to expatiate upon advantages which the reader 
will find more fully and lucidly treated by Professors Hen- 
frey, Huxley, and Paget, in the body of the present work. 

Dr. Whewell, in his defence of the absorbing attention 
given to mathematics and physics, in the University of 
Cambridge^ has urged the necessity of admitting, as means 
of education, only those subjects, the truths of which are 
demonstrated and settled forever. But what is the extent 
of the field of the absolutely unquestionable ? Math- 
ematics do indeed present truths upon which rational be- 
ings can never disagree ; but supposing that the student 
becomes a little inquisitive, and ventures to ask something 
about the grounds and origin of these truths, he is in- 



o6 INTRODUCTION. 

stantly launched into the arena of polemical strife, and his 
teacher, from being a frigid expositor of self-evident prin- 
ciples, is suddenly transformed into an ardent partisan. 
Dr. Whewell has been the life-long champion of certain 
views respecting the nature of mathematical conceptions, 
which are sharply contested, and have certainly no more 
than held their own in philosophical conflict. In the 
field of physics, also, has not the present generation wit- 
nessed one of the deepest and most comprehensive revo- 
lutions which the history of science records— the accept- 
ance of a totally new view of the nature and relations of 
forces ? What, indeed, is the object of education, the 
leading out of the mind, if not to arouse thought and pro- 
voke inquiry, as well as to direct them ? Is the student's 
mind a tank to be filled, or an organism to be quickened ? 
It may be well-pleasing to indolent and arrogant peda- 
gogues never to have their assertions questioned, but it is 
wholesome neither for themselves nor their students. 

Important as may be the mental preparation for dealing 
with certainties, it is still more important to prepare for 
dealing with uncertainties : to ignore this, arrests education 
at an inferior stage, and but ill prepares for the emergencies 
of practical life. It is matter of notoriety that the so- 
called liberal culture is no adequate protection against nu- 
merous fallacies and impostures which are current in so- 
ciety ; and to so great an extent is this true that it is com- 
mon to question whether, after all, for our real needs, edu 
cation is better than ignorance. But there is an ' educated 
ignorance,' which, for the great end of guiding to action 
and ruling the conduct, is as worthless as blank ignorance. 
Take the charlatanries of medical treatment; take the 
question of so-called 'spiritual manifestations,' and we find 
persons of reputed culture and good sense venturing opin- 



MEffTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 



37 



ions, adopting practices, and professing to * investigate,' in 
the completest ignorance of all the conditions of thinking 
— all the canons of inquiry which have conducted to truth 
in this high and complex range of subjects. 

To meet these and kindred emergencies of our social 
experience, we require an education not merely in dead 
languages, mathematics, and physics, with perhaps a super- 
added smattering of physiology and geology, but such a 
training in the fundamental organic sciences as shall con- 
stitute a thorough biological disciprme. 

The direct and powerful bearing of biological studies 
upon an understanding of the nature and relations of man 
has been so well stated by Mr. Mill, in the address already 
referred to, in speaking of the educational claims of physi- 
ology, that I cannot forbear making another extract : 

" The first is physiology ; the science of the laws of 
organic and animal life, and especially of the structure and 
functions of the human body. It would be absurd to pre- 
tend that a profound knowledge of this difficult subject 
can be acquired in youth, or as a part of general educa- 
tion. Yet an acquaintance with its leading truths is one 
of those acquirements v/hich ought not to be the exclusive 
property of a particular profession. The value of such 
knowledge for daily uses has been made familiar to us all 
by the sanitary discussions of late years. 'There is hardly 
one among us who may not, in some position of authority, 
be required to form an opinion and take part in public ac- 
tion on sanitary subjects. And the importance of under- 
standing the true conditions of health and disease — of 
knowing how to acquire and preserve that healthy habit of 
body which the most tedious and costly medical treatment, 
so often fails .to restore when once lost, should secure a 
place in general education for the principal maxims of hy- 
giene, and some of those even of practical medicine. For 
those who aim at high intellectual cultivation, the study 



og INTRODUCTION. 

of physiology has still greater recommendations, and is, in 
the present state of advancement of the higher studies, a 
real necessity. The practice which it gives in the study 
of nature is such as no other physical science affords in 
the same kind, and is the best introduction to the difficult 
questions of politics and social life. Scientific education, 
apart from professional objects, is but a preparation for 
judging rightly of Man, and of his requirements and in- 
terests. But to this final pursuit, which has been called 
par excellence the proper study of mankind, physiology is 
the most serviceable of the sciences, because it is the near- 
est. Its subject is already Man : the same .complex and 
manifold being, whose properties are not independent of 
circumstance, and immovable from age to age, like those 
of the ellipse and hyperbola, or of sulphur and phosphorus, 
but are infinitely various, indefinitely modifiable by art or 
accident, graduating by the nicest shades into one another, 
and reacting upon one another in a thousand ways, so that 
they are seldom capable of being isolated and observed 
separately. With the difficulties of the study of a being 
so constituted, the physiologist, and he alone among scien- 
tific inquirers, is already familiar. Take what view v/e 
will of man as a spiritual being, one part of his nature is 
far more like another than either of them is like any thing 
else. In the organic world we study nature under disad- 
vantages very similar to those which affect the study of 
moral and political phenomena : our means of making ex- 
periments are almost as limited, while the extreme com- 
plexity of the -facts makes the conclusions of general 
reasoning unusually precarious, on account of the vast 
number of circumstances that conspire to 'determine every 
result. Yet in spite of these obstacles, it is found possi- 
ble in physiology to arrive at a considerable number of 
well-ascertained and important truths. This, therefore, is 
«n excellent school in which to study the means of ovei- 
coming similar difficulties elsewhere. It i* in physiology, 
too, that we are first introduced to some of the concep- 
tions which play the greatest part in the moral and social 
sciences, but which do not occur at all in those of inor- 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 29 

ganic nature. As, for Instance, the idea of predisposition, 
and of predisposing causes, as distinguished from exciting 
causes. The operation of all moral forces is immensely 
influenced by predisposition : without that element, it is 
impossible to explain the commonest facts of history and 
social life. Physiology is also the first science in which 
we recognize the influence of habit — the tendency of 
something to happen again merely because it has happened 
before. From physiology, too, we get our clearest notion 
of what is meant by development or evolution. The 
growth of a plant or animal from the first germ is the typ- 
ical specimen of a phenomenon which rules through the 
whole course of the history of man and society — increase 
of function, through expansion and diflJcrentiation of struc- 
ture by internal forces. I cannot enter into the subject at 
greater length ; it is enough if I throw out hints which 
may be germs of further thought in yourselves. Those 
who aim at high intellectual achievements may be assured 
that no part of their time will be less wasted, than that 
which they employ in becoming familiar with the methods 
and with the main conceptions of the science of organiza- 
tion and life. 

" Physiology, at its upper extremity, touches on Psy- 
chology, orthe Philosophy of Mind : and without raising 
any disputed questions about the limits between Matter 
and Spirit, the nerves and brain are admitted to have so 
intimate a connection with the mental operations, that the 
student of the last cannot dispense with a considerable 
knowledge of the first. The value of psychology itself 
need hardly be expatiated upon in a Scottish university ; 
for it has always been there studied with brilliant success. 
Almost every thing which has been contributed from these 
islands toward its advancement since Locke and Berkeley, 
has until very lately, and much of it even in the present 
generation, proceeded from Scottish authors and Scottish 
professors. Psychology, in truth, is simply the knowledge 
of the laws of human nature. If there is any thing that 
deserves to be studied by man, it is his own nature and 
that of his fellow-men : and if it is worth studying at all. 



40 



INTRODUCTION. 



it is worth studying scientifically, so as to reach the funda- 
mental laws which underlie and govern all the rest. With 
regard to the suitableness of this subject for general edu- 
cation, a distinction must be^ made. There are certain 
observed laws of our thoughts and of our feelings which 
rest upon experimental evidence, and, once seized, are a 
clue to the interpretation of much that we are conscious 
of in ourselves, and observe in one another. Such, for 
example, are the laws of association. Psychology, so far 
as it consists of sucLJaws (I speak of the laws them- 
selves, not of their disputed applications) is as positive 
and certain a science as chemistry, and fit to be taught as 
such." 

The discipline and the knowledge conferred by study 
of the preceding group of sciences form the true prepa- 
ration for that higher class of studies, mental, moral, po- 
litical, and literary, which completes the course of a true 
liberal education. Although not themselves ranked as 
sciences, these extensive and important subjects are con- 
stantly becoming more and more scientific in their con- 
ceptions and methods, and hence form the natural sequel 
of a systematic scientific culture. Physiology passes insen- i 
sibly into psychology, the central science, upon which 
hinge logic, sociology, political economy, history, ethics, 
rESthetics, and literature. Mental phenomena are mani- 
festations of life, and their laws are derivatives of the 
laws of life ; only through a knowledge of the former, 
therefore, is it possible to reach a true understanding of 
the latter. Logic treats of the laws of evidence and proof, 
by which things and their relations are truly represented in 
thought.* Sociology considers the relations among human 
beings and the forces which act upon them in society, and 
it hence only becomes possible through a prior knowledge 

* Sec pnge ai; 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 



41 



of the vital and mental organization of man ; — political 
economy, a branch of this subject, treating of industrial and 
commercial questions, depends upon the same conditions. 
History is a record of the oeurse of human experience in 
its multiform phases, and the key to its right interpretation 
is that knowledge of the character of the Actor and the 
circumstances of action which it is the prerogative of sci- 
ence alone to give. Ethics, or moral science, determines 
the principles which should guide the right ruling of con- 
duct, and depends upon every science which can throv/ 
hght on the progress of the intellect, the evolution of the 
emotions, and the limits of moral liberty and responsibility 
imposed by the conditions of physical organization or social 
circumstances, i^ilsthetics, which regards the beautiful in 
nature, and gives rise to the fine arts, depends upon the 
laws of feeling and sensibility. Its principles are founded 
in the constitution of human nature, and will probably be 
yet reduced to a scientific system. To work out its great 
ideas of ' unity,' ' harmony,' ' proportion,' and the laws of 
beauty, it awaits a better psychology, and a deeper penetra- 
tion into the true spirit of nature. Literature is that great 
body of expression of thought upon a vast variety of sub- 
jects, the proper judgment of which depends upon the 
extent and accuracy of our knowledge of the truth of 
things in reality, conception, and expression. 

Thus does scientific culture reach its ultimate and ex- 
alted ends. Its course is along a line of connections 
which are causal and dynamic ; its ideas constantly flowing 
on and widening out until they embrace all the higher sub- 
jects of human interest and inquiry. The order of de- 
pendence of facts and principles must here imperatively 
determine the true order of study. To pass directly from 
languages and mathematics to the complex questions of 



^2 * INTRODUCTION. 

man and society, is to violate the continuity of Nature's 
logic ; to carry false methods of reasoning and judgment 
into the highest spheres of thought, and to provide for 
those errors of theory and vices of practice v^^hich are so 
lamentably conspicuous in the management of social and 
public affairs. Only by that scientific discipline w^hich 
confers a steadfast faith in the universality of law, and 
only as the discipline of mathematical and physical studies 
is corrected and amplified by familiarity with biological 
conceptions, will it be possible to secure a class of think- 
ers who can grapple with the upper grade of questions, in 
which the best welfare of society is involved. The cul- 
ture afforded by these higher subjects is also varied, co- 
pious, and quickening, They give breadth, adaptiveness, 
and enlarged effect to the discipline o? the preparatory 
sciences, and cultivate mental pliancy, readiness of judg- 
ment, and practical sagacity. 

If it be objected that this scheme is too vast, I reply, 
firsts the student is not expected to grasp the details of 
the various sciences, but only to master their leading prin- 
ciples. At least one science, however, should be thor- 
oughly acquired by every well-educated person — should be 
carried into detail, pursued experimentally, and pushed to 
its boundaries. The student should be brought face to 
face with the stern problems of Nature, and taught to 
wrestle with the difficulties she offers ; only thus can he 
truly know how much is meant by the word ' truth,' and 
get the discipline that will give value to his other scientific 
studies. But while the thorough attainment of a single 
science nray serve for training in method, it is highly desi- 
rable, and in a mental point of view completely possible, 
to master two, say inorganic chemistry and botany. They 
represent separate orders of scientific truths 5 both are at- 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 4-j 

tractive to fascination, and their opportunities of study are 
universal. 

But, secotidly^ this scheme is not too extended, because 
its arrangement economizes mental power in the highest 
degree. Wasting no force for mere discipline, it gives 
the entire energies of the mind to the direct attainment of 
knowledge, while the natural sequence of subjects, and 
the constant reappearance and re-employment of old acqui- 
sitions in the track of progress, guarantees a rapidity of 
mental advancement and a comprehensiveness of attain- 
ment without parallel in past experience. With a rever- 
ent acquiescence in the finite limitations of mind, science 
nevertheless gives the clue to reaches of thought and splen- 
dors of achievement which old routinists regard with in- 
credulity. When Nature becomes the subject of study, 
the love of Nature its stimulus, and the order of Nature 
its guide, then will results in education rival the achieve- 
ments of Science in the fields of its noblest triumphs. 

What now is the basis of relative valuations among 
subjects of thought ? These subjects fall into three cate- 
gories — 1st, the objects of Nature ; 2d, their mental rep- 
resentations ; 3d, the devices for marking and distinguishing 
them ; and the various terms employed to express these 
relations may be thus exhibited : 

TliC External World, Mind, Language. 

Tilings, Ideas, "Words. 

Presentation, Re-presentation, Re-representation 

Physics, Metaphysics, Philology. 

Objective Realities, Subjective Symbols, Artificial Symbols 

Objects and Relations ) Nature's Instruments ) Man's Instruments 

to be known, j for the work, j for the work. 



44 INTRODUCTION. 

In this scheme we build upon the solid foundation of 
objective nature, and place first that which we find first in 
the order of the world — the fabric of being into which we 
are introduced at birth — which was here before we came 
and will remain when we are gone. Man's first and his 
life-long concern is with his environment, the objective 
universe of God, the theatre of his activity, ownership, am- 
bition, enjoyment, and the multifarious instrumentality of 
his experience and education. It is a realm of law, and 
therefore he can understand and control it : a scene of irre- 
sistible forces which crush him if he is ignorant, and serve 
him if he is wise. But in what manner are created intelli- 
gences to deal with the organism of nature in which they 
have such varied and vital interests ? By its ideal re-crea- 
tion for the individual. The brain duplicates the universe in 
miniature ; hence the passage from things to thoughts ; 
from objective realities to their ideal symbols. We here, 
as it were, take one step away from outward nature and 
enter a world of representation, which is of great impor- 
tance to us because of the still greater importance of that 
which it represents. The overlooking of this fact has 
been the error of ages. Men have been fascinated v/ith 
the curious phenomenon of mental representation, and have 
dwelt upon it in utter neglect of that zuh'ich is represented. 
Confessedly of high interest, they have forgotten that it is 
forever subordinate to the original order for which it stands. 
Losing themselves in the contemplation of this mystery, 
metaphysicians have often fallen into a kind of skept'cal 
hallucination as to whether, after all, there are any realities 
back of the ideas ; or, granting an external world, they 
have held it to be of very trifling account, as all its truths 
are to be excogitated from the realm of pure ideas. 
Modern psychology inverts this order, and teaches not 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 



45 



only that a knowledge of nature depends upon the direct 
study of nature, but that our knowledge of mind itself, of 
the relations among ideas, depends upon our prior under- 
standing of the relations of phenomena and of the laws of 
action in the environment. It was this danger of being 
beguiled with mere symbols that called forth the sagacious 
adjuration of Newton : " Oh, physics, beware of meta- 
physics ! " Mr. Mill thus points out the mischievous con- 
sequences of the error in the case of logic : 

" The notion that what is of primary importance to the 
logician in a proposition, is the relation between the two 
ideas corresponding to the subject and predicate (instead of 
the relation between the two phenomena which they respec- 
tively express), seems to me one of the most fatal errors 
ever introduced into the philosophy of logic ; and the prin- 
cipal cause why the theory of the science has made such 
inconsiderable progress during the last two centuries. The 
treatises on logic, and on the branches of mental philosophy 
connected with logic, which have been produced since the 
intrusion of this cardinal error, though sometimes written 
by men of extraordinary abilities and attainments, almost 
always tacitly imply a theory that the investigation of truth 
consists in contemplating and handling our ideas, or con- 
ceptions of things themselves ; a doctrine tantamount to 
the assertion that the only mode of acquiring knowledge 
of nature is to study it at second-hand, as represented in 
our own minds. Meanwhile, inquiries into every kind of 
natural phenomena were Incessantly establishing great and 
fruitful truths on most Important subjects by processes upon 
which these views of the nature of Judgment and Reason- 
ing threw no light." * 

Another step brings us to language — the system of 
marks and labels for thought — the " sio;ns of ideas." 

* Mill's " System of Logic," vol. i., p. 98. 



46 



INTRODUCTION. 



These are the implements furnished by art for dealing 
with ideas of things. Through tb.e association of ideas 
with visible symbols, language becomes the embodi- 
ment of thought, and there arises a relation among 
words growing out of the relation^ among ideas, which 
again grow out of the relations among things. Both rest 
upon the order of nature which science reveals ; but that 
order is twice refracted through distorting media, and al- 
though the semblance of science is to be found in both, 
yet so many imperfections are introduced at each change, 
that we are only safe by keeping the intellectual eye stead- 
ily fixed upon the primal source of truth. The over- 
shadowing error of present education, is the propensity 
to accept words in place of the ideas and things for which 
they stand, and from which they borrow all their value. 
This false estimate has been well characterized by the ob- 
servation that " words are the counters of wise men, but 
the money of fools." Of course, most of the realities 
of knowledge are inaccessible to us ; we know them only 
through their verbal signs ; but all the more necessary is 
it that we should never forget that we are dealing with 
third-hand representations. Words are the tools of the 
thinker, which he must know how to handle, or they are 
useless ; but the sensible mechanic remembers that his 
tools are for nothing but use, and hence spends the least 
possible time in grinding and polishing them. Words are 
the vehicles of thought ; but as the farmer, who, having 
ten-thousand dollars to invest in his business, should put 
nine-thousand of it in wagons to carry his produce to 
market, reserving only one-thousand to buy a farm, would 
be justly chargeable with stupidity, so the student who 
invests the principal share of his time and power in va- 
riously-constructed vehicles of thought, with a correspond- 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION, 



AJ 



ing neglect of what they are to carry, is chargeable with an 
analogous folly. So much of the study of language, and 
in such forms as are necessary to its intelligent use, is de- 
manded in education ; but while this places the study upon 
explicit grounds of utility, by the principle of utility should 
it be limited. But the lingual student, captivated by the 
interest of word-studies, loses the end in the means. A 
plough was sent to a barbarian tribe : they hung it over 
with ornaments, and fell down and worshipped it. In 
much the same manner is languao-e treated in education.* 

The old scholasticism sported with symbols, ideal and 
verbal ; science makes a serious inquest into the realities 
for which they stand. The greatest secular event in his- 
tory was this inversion of values among subjects of thought, 
and the rise of science and conquest of nature which fol- 
lowed ; and an event of no less moment will be the car- 
rying out of this great intellectual movement in education. 

As respects discipline, these considerations present the 
question thus : shall it consist in the mere futile flourish- 
ing of the instruments of inquiry, or shall it be obtained 
by their employment upon the ends for which they arc 
designed ? 

In this discussion I use the term Science in its true and 
largest meaning, which is nothing less than a right inter- 
pretation of nature — a comprehension of the workings of 
law wherever law prevails. Knowledge grows. Its germs 
are found in the lowest grades of ignorance, and develop 
first into the improved form of common information, 

* " There is no study that could prove more successful in producing often 
thorough idleness and vacancy of mind, parrot-like repetition and sing-song 
knowledge, to the abeyance and destruction of the intellectual powers, as well 
as to the loss and paralysis of the outward senses, than our traditional study and 
idolatry of language." — Professor Ha/ford Vaughaii. 



48 INTRODUCTION. 

which then unfolds into the definite and perfected condi- 
tion of science. It matters nothing whether the subjects 
are stones or stars, human souls, or the complications of 
social relation ; — that most perfect knowledge of each 
which re\ieals its uniformities constitutes its special science, 
and that comprehensive view of the relations which each 
sustains to all in the cosmical order, realizes the broadest 
import of the conception. Science, therefore, is the rev- 
elation to reason of the policy by which God administers 
the affairs of the world. But how inadequate is the con- 
ception of it generally entertained, even among men of 
eminent literary cultivation, who seem to think the highest 
object of understanding the things of nature is merely to 
slake a petty curiosity ! * 

A common form of misapprehension is that which limits 
science to the consideration of * mere matter,' and then 
reproaches it with being a cold materializing pursuit. But 
science deals with forces as well as matter ; and when 
those who make this reproach will indicate just how much 
remains when the actions of power upon matter are ex- 
hausted, they v/ill, perhaps, widen their conceptions upon 

* Mr. Carlyle writes : " For many years it has been one of my constant re- 
grets, that no schoolmaster of mine had a knowledge of natural history, so far 
at least as to have taught me the grasses that grow by the wayside, and the little 
winged and wingless neighbors that are continually meeting me, with a saluta- 
tion which I cannot answer, as things are ! Why didn't somebody teach me the 
constellations, too, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are al- 
ways overhead, and which I don't half know to this day ? I love to prophesy 
that there will come a time, when not in Edinburgh only, but in all Scottish 
and European towns and villages, the schoolmaster will be strictly required to 
possess these two capabilities (neither Greek nor Latin more strict !) and that no 
ingenuous little denizen of this universe be thenceforward debarred from his 
right of liberty in these two departments, and doomed to look on them as if 
across grated fences all his life ! " No hint is here given of that transcendent 
order of truth to which surrounding objects are but the portals. 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 



49 



the subject. Not only do the great lines of scientific 
thought converge to the supreme end of elucidating the 
regnant subjects of man and society, but its influence is 
powerfully felt even in the highest regions of philosophical 
speculation.* Yet it is by denying this, and insisting that 
science consists in collecting stones, labelling plants, and 
dabbling in chemical messes, that the adherents of tradition 
strive to render it obnoxious to popular prejudice. In de- 
fending the policy of the Great English Schools vi^hich 
contemptuously ignore almost the whole body of modern 
knowledge, the able Head-master of Rugby puts the case 

* Professor Masson, in his lively little work, " Recent British Philosophy," 
remarks : " In no age so conspicuously as in our own has there been a crowding 
:.i of new scientific conceptions of all kinds to exercise a perturbing influence on 
Speculative Philosophy. They have come in almost too fast for Philosophy's 
powers of reception. She has visibly reeled amid their shocks, and has not yet 
recovered her equilibrium. Within those years alone which we have been en- 
gaged in surveying there have been developments of native British science, not 
to speak of influxes of scientific ideas, hints, and probabilities from without, in 
the midst of which British Philosophy has looked about her, scared and bewil- 
dered, and has felt that some of her oldest statements about herself, and some 
of the most important terms in her vocabulary, require re-explication. I think 
that I can even mark the precise year 1848 as a point whence the appearance 
of an unusual amount of unsteadying thought may be dated — as if, in that year 
of simultaneous European irritability, not only were the nations agitated politi- 
cally, as the newspapers saw, but conceptions of an intellectual kind that had 
long been forming themselves underneath in the depths were shaken up to the 
surface in scientific journals and books. There are several vital points on which 
no one can now think, even were he receiving four thousand a year for doing 
so, as he might very creditably have thought seventeen years ago. There have 
been during that period, in consequence of revelations by scientific research in 
this dir.ection and in that, some most notable enlargements of our views of phys- 
ical nature and of history — enlargements even to the breaking down of what 
had formerly been a wall in the minds of most, and the substitution on that side 
of a sheer vista of open space. But there is no need of dating from 1848, or 
from any other year in particular. In all that we have recently seen of the 
kind there has been but the prolongation of an action from Science upon Philos- 
ophy that had been going on for a considerable time before." 
4 



50 



INTRODUCTION. 



on the explicit ground that science deals only with the 
lower utilities, while classical studies carry us up to the 
sphere of life and man ; that science only instructs^ while 
they humanize. But we have seen that such a view is 
indefensible. Science being the most perfect form of 
thought, and man its proper subject, the sharply-defined 
question is, whether he is to be studied by the lower or the 
higher method. Is the most thorough acquaintance with 
humanity to be gained by cutting the student off from the 
life of his own age, and setting him to tunnel through dead 
languages, to get such imperfect and distorted glimpses as 
he may of man and society in their antiquated forms ; or by 
equipping him with the best resources of modern thought, 
and putting him to the direct and systematic study of men 
and society as they present themselves to observation and 
experience. In all other departments it is held desirable, 
as far as possible, to place directly before the studept his 
materials of inquiry : why abandon the principle in the case 
of its highest application ? 

Our question thus assumes another aspect : for the best 
discipline of the human mind, shall we make use of those 
higher forms and completer methods of knowledge which 
constitute the science of the present age, or shall we use 
the lower and looser knowledge and cruder methods of 
the past ? 



Science also has great advantage, as a means of mental 
discipline, in the incentives to which it appeals for arousing 
mental activity, its motives to effort being such as the pu- 
pil can be made most readily to appreciate and feel. The 
reasons for studying the dead languages are not such as to 
act with inspiring force upon beginners : hence motives to. 
exertion have largely to be supplied by external authority, 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 



11 



which necessitates in the school-discipline a decided co- 
ercive element, while those who administer it, having little 
sympathy with ' new-light ' notions about making study 
pleasurable, lighten the student's tasks by the enlivening 
assurance that wearisome toil is evermore the price of great 
results. 

This is the old ascetic misconception of the controlling 
aims of life — false everywhere, fatal in education. The 
free and healthy exercise of the faculties and functions is 
so pleasurable as to be universally spoken of as a ' play ' ; 
who then has the right to turn it into dreary and repulsive 
task-work ? The love of enjoyment is the deepest and 
most powerful impulse of our nature, and the educational 
system which does not recognize and build upon it violates 
the highest claim of that nature. The first thing to be 
done by the teacher is to awaken the pupil's interest, to 
engage his sympathies and kindle his enthusiasm, for these 
are the motors of intellectual progress ; it is then easy to 
enchain his attention, to store his mind with knowledge, 
and carry mental cultivation up to the point of discipline. 

This is of the first importance. Flogging has been the 
accompaniment of education for centuries ; and although 
the humanizing agencies are slov/ly bringing us out of this 
barbaric dispensation, yet the penal policy, or that which 
makes the fear of pain, in one shape or other, the chief 
incentive to efFort, is still prevalent. This not only ap- 
peals to the lowest motives, but is self-defeating. Pain- 
ful feelings are anti-vital, depressing, fatal to mental spon- 
taneity, and therefore a hindrance to acquisition : agreeable 
emotions, on the other hand, are stimulating, and favor 
nervous impressibility and spontaneous impulsion. The 
instinctive love of pleasurable activity which is so marked 
in youth becomes therefore a m.ost powerful means of men- 



52 



INTRODUCTION. 



tal improvement. Government appeals to the dread of 
punishment as a motive to right conduct ; but who will 
compare the influence it thus exerts upon the beneficent 
activities of society with the general stimulation to this 
result which springs from the desire of happiness ? A 
scientific system of culture, which deals with the imme- 
diate objects and the living agencies of the world, is suited 
to employ this higher class of motives. The interest of an 
unperverted mind in the things of twenty centuries ago can 
never equal its interest in the things of to-day. It can- 
not for a moment be admitted that an empty and useless 
shell of a fact has the same relation to the mind that a liv- 
ing and applicable one has. Nothing can arouse, quicken, 
and mould it like the realities with which it has to deal. It 
has been well said that " everywhere throughout nature we 
find faculties developed through the performance of those 
functions which it is their office to perform, not through 
artificial exercises devised to fit them for those functions." 
A system of culture, therefore, which ignores the thou- 
sand immediate pressures and solicitations upon feeling and 
thought, by which human beings are stirred, can neither 
shape the mind into harmony with its actual circumstances, 
nor reach the deepest springs of impulse and exertion. 
The intellect follows the lead of the heart ; and with the 
slow emergence of right ideas respecting the uses of the 
world, we shall discover that the real scene of human 
action and enjoyment is also the true source of inspiration 
and of the noblest incentives to effort. The end of a 
rational culture being to adjust the student's relations to 
his own age, it will employ for the purpose all those sub- 
jects which come home to him most directly, and that 
these are best fitted for rousing and sustaining a pleasurable 
mental activity is both declared by reason and confirmed 
by experience. 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. ^o 

And this leads me finally to observe that a mental cul- 
ture, based upon science, and applied to the great questions 
of the time, will give a type of mental discipline marked 
by the elements of vigor and courage, and suited to brace 
the mind for the serious work which comes before it with 
the advance of society. In this respect the classical cul- 
tivation is so faulty as hardly to deserve the name of dis- 
cipline. Its ideal is European, and is shaped into accord- 
ance v/ith the requirements of the European system : it 
is that of the refined and elegant scholar, fitted for medita- 
tive retirement in some cloistered seclusion or ' sacred 
shade,' immersed in the past, and disinclined to meddle 
with the present. But what Sydney Smith calls "the 
safe and elegant imbecility of classical learning," is not 
the preparation needed by the cultivated mind of this 
country. Here all the cumbrous machinery for taking care 
of people and superseding thought — Monarchy, Nobility, 
and State-Church, are gone, and we are thrown back upon 
first principles, to work out the great problem of a self 
governing society, for weal or for woe. The finished 
classical scholar bhnks the issues, and shirks the responsi- 
bilities of his time. He is disgusted with the ' noise and 
confusion ' of this degenerate utilitarian age, and longs to 
bury himself in the quietness of the past. " In propor- 
tion as the material interests of the present moment be- 
come more and more engrossing, more and more tyran- 
nical in their exactions, in the same proportion it becomes 
more necessary that man should fall back on the common 
interests of humanity, and free himself from the tram- 
mels of the present by living in the past," says the advo- 
cate of the English universities, Dr. Donaldson. But this 
will not do here. Not to ' fall back,' but to press forward * 
should be the motto of American education. Not to 



54 INTRODUCTION. 

escape the present and live in the past, but resolutely to 
accept the present, thanking God for its opportunities, and 
to live rather in the future, is the high requirement of men- 
tal duty. And herein is the character of the two systems 
shown, that while the one looks forever backward, the 
other leads steadfastly forward. Science, therefore, pier- 
cing the future, and working toward it through the pres- 
ent, engages naturally with those great subjects of public 
interest which ai'e no longer to be postponed or evaded. 

The classicists are fond of presenting the issue as be 
tween liberal culture and money-making, and triumph- 
antly contrast the refined and generous feelings which clus- 
ter around the former, with the vulgar and sordid motives 
v/hich characterize the latter. But the real issue is far 
different from this. The mind of our age is confronted 
with a host of urgent questions, such as the Perils of Mis- 
government, the Limits of Legislation, the Management 
of Criminals, of the Insane, the Congenitally Defective, 
and the Pauper Class ; the operation pf Charities, the 
Philosophy of Philanthropy, the relations of Sex and 
Race, International Ethics, the^ Freedom of Trade, the 
Rights of Industry, Property in Ideas, Public Hygiene, 
Primary Education, Religious Liberty, the Rights of In- 
vention, Political Representation, and many others, which 
inosculate and interfuse' into the great total of practical 
inquiry which challenges the intellect of our times ; and it 
is this which the classical scholar evades, when he shrinks 
from the present and retires into the past. And well he 
may ; for the mastery of the languages and literatures of 
Greece and Rome, and culture in unprogressive studies, 
furnish neither suitable ideas nor mental habits for this 
kind of work. Science, grounding itself in the order and 
truth of nature, armed with the appropriate knowledge, and 



MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION. 



55 



inspired with the hope of a better future, to which it sees 
all things tending, enters the great field as properly its own, 
and will train its votaries to that breadth of view, that 
robust boldness of treatment, and that patient and dispas- 
sionate temper which the imminent questions of the times 
so decisively demand. 

In his late instructive lecture on the " Development of 
Ideas in Physical Science," Professor Liebig shows that it 
has been a slow organic growth, depending upon deeper 
(Conditions than the mere favor or opposition of Church or 
State. He shows that in Greece the progress of science 
was arrested by its slave-system ; points out the necessity 
of abounding wealth to give leisure for thought and cul- 
ture, and the importance of those social conditions which 
bring into intimate intercourse all classes of thinkers and 
Workers, upon the mutual co-operation of which the ad- 
vance of science and of society depends. He says : 
" Freedom, that is the absence of all restrictions which 
can prevent men from using to their advantage the powers 
which God has given them, is the mightiest of all the 
conditions of progress in civilization and culture ; " and 
he adds that, "it can hardly be doubted that among the 
peoples of the North American Free States, all the con- 
ditions exist for their development to the highest point of 
culture and civilization attainable by man." 

These are weighty considerations for the educators of 
this country. Institutions are but expressions of ideas and 
habits ; and the European policy, governmental and eccle- 
siastical, is grounded upon a culture suited to its neces- 
sities, and which has grown up with it in the course of 
ages. Both idolize the past ; both worship precedent and 
authority, and both dread independent inquiry into first 
principles : one recoils from Freedom, as the other 



56 INTRODUCTION. 

from Science. Freedom and Science, on the other hand, 
have had a coeval destiny j have suffered together, and 
grovi^n together. Both break from prescription and throw 
themselves upon Nature, and the watchword of both is 
Progress, which consists not in rejecting the past, but in 
subordinating and outgrowing it, in assimilating and reor- 
ganizing its truth, and leaving behind its obsolete forms. 
In the last century we threw off the trammels of the re- 
pressive system, and entered upon the experiment of Free 
Institutions ; but it avails little to shift the external forms 
if the old ideas are not replaced by new growths of thought 
and feeling. Our system of Popular Education is the first 
great constructive measure of National Progress, and this 
has yet to be moulded to its purposes through a system of 
higher institutions, organized into harmony with the genius 
of American circumstances and the great requirements of 
the period. 



In the preceding pages I have quoted Mr. J. S. Mill's 
able presentation of the claims of Scientific Studies ; but 
lest I be accused of partiality in the use of his authority, 
it is proper to add that in the same address he makes also 
a strong argument for the* Classics. It is not pertinent 
here to criticise this branch of his argument, as the claims 
of the classics are put less on the usual ground of * disci- 
pline ' than on certain high utilities of scholarship. But 
while, as the reader has seen, Mr. Mill urges the impor- 
tance of Scientific Studies for all^ an examination of his 
argument for the Classics will show that it is applicable 
only to those who, like himself, are professiohal scholars, 
and devote their lives to Philological, Historical, or Criti- 
cal Studies. 



ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE 
STUDY OF PHYSICS. 



A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION 
OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



JOHN TYNDALL, LL.D., F.R.S. 



I 



OJSr THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 



There is a word in the title of this Lecture which does 
not clearly convey the idea by which I shall be guided 
in its delivery. I hold in my hand a soiled proof of the 
syllabus of the present course, and the title of the present 
Lecture is there stated to be "On the Importance of 
the Study of Physics as a Means of Education." The 
corrected proof, however, contains the following title: 
— " On the Importance of the Study of Physics as a 
Branch oi Education." Small as this editorial altera- 
tion may seem, the two words appear to me to suggest 
two radically distinct modes of viewing the subject be- 
fore us. The term Education is sometimes applied to a 
single faculty or organ, and if we know wherein the 
education of a single organ or faculty consists, this 
knowledge will enable us to form a clearer notion re- 
garding the education of the sum of all the faculties, or 
of the mind. When, for example, we speak of the 
education of the voice, what do we mean } There are. 
certain membranes at the top of the windpipe which are 
capable of being thrown into vibration by the air forced 
between them from the lungs, and thus caused to pro- 
duce sound. These membranes are, to some extent, 
under the control of the will : it is found that they can 



60 PROFESSOR TYNDALL 

be so modified by exercise as to produce notes of a 
clearer and more melodious character, and this exercise 
we call the education of the voice. We may choose for 
our exercise a new song or an old song, a festive song 
or a solemn chant; and, the education of the voice being 
the object we have in view, the songs may be regarded 
as the vica7ts by which this education is accomplished. 
I think this expresses the state of the case more clearly 
than if we were to call the songs a branch of Education. 
Regarding also the education of the human mind as the 
improvement and development of the mental faculties, 
I consider the study of Physics to be a means towards 
the attainment of these objects. Of course, from this 
point of view, I degrade Physics into an implement of 
culture, and I mean to do so, to a great extent. View- 
ing the development of the mental faculties as the end 
of mental education, it will be my endeavour to state to 
you some of the claims of Physical Science as a means 
towards the attainment of this end. 

I do not think that it is the mission of this age, or of 
any other particular age, to lay down a system of edu- 
cation which shall hold good for all ages. The basis 
of human nature is, perhaps, permanent, but not so the 
forms under which the spirit of humanity manifests 
itself. It is sometimes peaceful, sometimes warlike, 
sometimes religious, soitictimcs sceptical, and history is 
simply the record of its mutations. 

" The eternal Pan 
^Yllo layetli the world's incessant plaii 
Ilaltetli never in one shape, 
^ut for ever doth escape 
Into new forms. " 

This appears to be the law of things throughout the 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 6 1 

universe, and it is therefore no proof of fickleness or 
destructiveness, properly so called, if the implements 
of human culture change with the times, and the require- 
ments of the present age be found different from those 
of the preceding. Unless you are prepared to say that 
the past world, or some portion of it, has been the final 
expression of human competency; that the wisdom of 
man has already reached its climax ; that the intellect 
of to-day possesses feebler powers, or a narrower scope 
than the intellect of earlier times ; you cannot, with 
reason, demand an unconditional acceptance of the 
systems of the past, nor are you justified in divorcing 
me from the world and times in which I live, and con- 
fining my conversation to the times gone by. Who can 
blame me if I cherish the belief that the world is still 
young ; that there are great possibilities in store for it ; 
that the Englishman of to-day is made of as good stuff, 
and has as high and independent a vocation to fulfil, as 
had the ancient Greek or Roman ? While thankfully 
accepting what antiquity has to offer, let us never forget 
that the present century has just as good a right to its 
forms of thought and methods of culture as any former 
centuries had to theirs, and that the same sources of 
power are open to us to-day as were ever open to 
humanity in any age of the world. 

In the earliest religious writings, we find man described 
as a mixture of the earthy and the divine. The exist- 
ence of the latter implies, in his case, that of the former : 
and hence the holiest and most self-denying saint must, 
to a certain extent, protect himself against hunger and 
cold. But every attempt to restrict man to the dominion 
of the senses has failed, and will continue to fail. He is 
the repository of forces whicli push him beyond the 



52 PROFESSOR TYNDALL 

world of sense. He has an intellect as well as a palate, 
and the demands of the latter being satisfied, the former 
inevitably puts in its claim. We cannot quench these 
desires of the intellect. They are stimulated by the 
phenomena which surround us as the body is by oxygen; 
and in the presence of these phenomena we thirst for 
knowledge as an Arab longs for water when he smells 
the Nile. The Chaldean shepherds could not rest con- 
tented with their bread and milk, but found that they 
had other wants to satisfy. The stars shed their light 
upon the shepherd and his flock, but in both cases 
with very different results. The quadruped cropped the 
green herbage and slept contented ; but that power 
which had already made rnan the lord of the quadruped 
was appealed to night after night, and thus the intellec- 
tual germ which lay in the nature of these Chaldeans 
was stimulated and developed. 

Surely, it might be urged, if man be not made, and 
stars scattered, by guess-work, there is strong reason for 
assuming that it was intended that mental power should 
be developed in this way. But if this be granted, it 
must be admitted that we have the very highest sanction 
for the prosecution of physical research. Sanction, in- 
deed, is a term too weak to express the inference sug- 
gested by a comparison of Man's powers with his position 
upon earth; it points to an imperative command to 
search and to examine, rather than to a mere toleration 
of physical inquiry. 

The term Physics, as made use of in the present 
Lecture, refers to that portion of natural science which 
lies midway between astronomy and chemistry. The 
former, indeed, is Physics applied to masses of enormous 
weight, while the latter is Physics applied to atoms and 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 63 

molecules. The subjects of Physics proper are, there- 
fore, those which lie nearest to human perception : — the 
light and heat of the sun, colour, sound, motion, the 
loadstone, electrical attractions and repulsions, thunder 
and lightning, rain, snow, dew, and so forth. The senses 
of Man stand between these phenomena, between the 
external world, and the world of thought. He takes 
his facts from Nature and transfers them to the domain 
of mind : he looks at them, compares them, observes 
their mutual relations and connexions, and thus brings 
them clearer and clearer before his mental eye, until, 
finally, by a kind of inspiration, he alights upon the 
cause which unites them. This is the last act of the 
mind, in this centripetal direction, in its progress from 
the multiplicity of facts to the central cause on which 
they depend. But, having guessed the cause, he is not 
yet. contented : he now sets out from his centre and 
travels in the ether direction : he sees that if his guess 
be true, certain consequences must follow from it, and 
he appeals to the law and testimony of experiment 
whether the thing is so. Thus he completes the circuit 
of thought, — from without inward, from multiplicity 
to unity, and from within outward, from unity to multi- 
plicity. He traverses the line between cause and effect 
both ways, and, in so doing, calls all his reasoning 
powers into play. The mental effort involved in these 
processes may be justly compared to those exercises of 
the body which invoke the co-operation of every muscle, 
and thus confer upon the whole frame the benefits of 
healthy action. 

The first experiment a man makes is a physical ex- 
periment : the suction-pump is but an imitation of the 
first act of every new-born infant. Nor do I think it 



64. PROFESSOR TYNDALL 

calculated to lesson that infant's reverence, or to make 
him a worse citizen, when his riper experience show? 
him that the atmosphere was his helper in extracti^ig 
the first draught from his mother's breast. The child 
grows, but is still an experimenter: he grasps at the 
moon, and his failure teaches him to respect distance. 
At length his little fingers acquire sufficient mechanical 
tact to lay hold of a spoon. He thrusts the instrument 
into his mouth ; hurts his little gums, and thus learns 
the impenetrability of matter. He lets the spoon fall, 
and jumps with delight to hear it rattle against the table. 
The experiment made by accident is repeated with in- 
tention, and thus the young Newton receives his first 
lessons upon sound and gravitation. There are pains 
and penalties, however, in the path of the young in- 
quirer: he is sure to go wrong, and Nature is just as 
sure to inform him of the fact. He falls down stairs, 
burns his fingers, cuts his hand, scalds his tongue, and 
in this way learns the conditions of his physical well 
being. This is Nature's way of proceeding, and it is 
v/onderful what progress her pupil makes. His enjoy- 
ments for a time are physical, and the confectioner's 
shop occupies the foreground of human happiness ; but 
the blossoms of a finer life are already beginning to 
unfold themselves, and the relation of cause and efiect 
dawns upon the boy. He begins to see that the present 
condition of things is not final, but depends upon one 
that has gone before, and will be succeeded by another. 
He becomes a puzzle to himself; and to satisfy his 
newly-awakened curiosity, asks all manner of incon- 
venient questions. The needs and tendencies of human 
nature express themselves through these early yearnings 
of the child. He desires to know the character and 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 65 

causes of the phenomena presented to him ; and unless 
this desire has been granted for the express purpose of 
having it repressed, unless the attractions of natural 
phenomena be like the blush of the forbidden fruit, con- 
ferred merely for the purpose of exercising our self- 
denial by letting them alone ; then I claim for the study 
of Physics the recognition that it answers to an impulse 
implanted* by Nature in the human constitution, and 
he who would oppose such study must be prepared to 
exhibit the credentials which authorize him to contra- 
vene Nature's manifest designs. Such credentials were 
never given ; and the opposition, Avhere it exists, is in 
most, if not in all cases, due to the fact, that at the 
time when the opponent of Science was beginning to 
inquire like the little boy, it was so arranged by human 
institutions that the train of thought suggested by 
natural objects should, in his case, be utterly sup- 
planted by another. But is this unavoidable ? Is the 
knowledge of grammatical concord and government so 
utterly antagonistic to the scientific discernment of 
the same two principles in Nature, as to render the com- 
plete extrusion of the one necessary to the existence of 
the other .-• 

A few days ago, a Master of Arts, who is still a young 
man, and therefore the recipient of a modern education, 
stated to me that for the first twenty years of his life he 
had been taught nothing regarding Light, Heat, Mag- 
netism, or Electricity : twelve of these years had been 
spent among the ancients, all connexion being thus 
severed between him and natural phenomena. Now, 
we cannot, without prejudice to humanity, separate the 
present from the past. The nineteenth century strikes 
its roots into the centuries gone by, and draws nutriment 



65 



PROf'ESSOR TYNDALL 



from them. The world cannot afford to lose the record 
of any great deed or utterance ; for such deeds and such 
utterances are prolific throughout all time. We cannot 
yield the companionship of our loftier brothers of an- 
tiquity, — of our Socrates and Cato, — whose lives provoke 
us to sympathetic greatness across the interval of two 
thousand years. As long as the ancient languages are 
the means of access to the ancient mind, they must 
ever be of priceless value to humanity ; but it is as the 
avenues of ancient thought, and not as the instruments 
of modern culture, that they are chiefly valuable to Man. 
Surely these avenues might be kept open without de- 
manding such sacrifices as that above referred to. We 
have conquered and possessed ourselves of continents of 
land, concerning which antiquity knew nothing ; and if 
new continents of thought reveal themselves to the 
exploring human spirit, shall we not possess them also .'' 
In these latter days, the study of Physics has given us 
glimpses of the methods of Nature which were quite 
hidden from the ancients, and it would be treason to 
the trust committed to us, if we were to sacrifice the 
hopes and aspirations of the Present out of deference to 
the Past. 

At an agricultural college in Hampshire, with which I 
was connected for some time, and which is now con- 
verted into a school for the general education of youth, 
a Society was formed among the boys, which met weekly 
for the purpose of reading reports and papers upon 
various subjects. The Society had its president and 
treasurer; and abstracts of its proceedings were pub- 
lished in a little monthly periodical issuing from the 
school press. One of the most remarkable features of 
these weekly meetings was, that after the general 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 67 

business had been concluded, each member of the 
Society enjoyed the right of asking questions on any 
subject on which he desired information. The questions 
were either written out previously in a book devoted to 
the purpose, or, if a question happened to suggest itself 
during the meeting, it was written upon a slip of paper 
and handed in to the Secretary, who afterwards read all 
the questions aloud. A number of teachers were usually 
present, and they and the boys made a common stock 
of their wisdom in furnishing replies. As might be 
expected from an assemblage of eighty or ninety boys, 
varying from eighteen to eight years old, many extraor- 
dinary questions were proposed. To the eye which loves 
to detect in the tendencies of the young the instincts of 
humanity generally, such questions are not without a 
certain philosophic interest, and I have therefore thought 
it not derogatory to the present course of Lectures to 
copy a few of these questions, and to introduce them 
here. They run as follows : — 

What are the duties of the Astronomer Royal ? 

What is frost ? 

Why are thunder and lightning more frequent in. 
summer than in winter.'' 

What occasions falling stars ? 

What is the cause of the sensation called " pins and 
needles" .'' 

What is the cause of waterspouts } 

What is the cause of hiccup } 

If a towel be wetted with water, why does the wet 
portion become darker than before ? 

What is meant by Lancashire witches ? 

Does the dew rise or fall ? 

What is the principle of the hydraulic press ? 



68 PROFESSOR TYNDALL 

Is there more oxygen in the air in summer than in 
winter ? 

What are those rings which we see round the gas and 
sun ? 

What is thunder ? 

How is it that a black hat can be moved by forming 
round it a magnetic circle, while a white hat remains 
stationary ? 

What is the cause of perspiration ? 

Is it true that men were once monkeys ? 

What is the difference between the soid and the iiwid? 

Is it contrary to the rules of Vegetarianism to eat 
eggs ? 

In looking over these questions, which were wholly 
unprompted, and have been copied almost at random 
from the book already alluded to, we see that many of 
them are suggested directly by natural objects, and are 
not such merely as had an interest conferred on them 
by previous culture. Now the fact is beyond the boy's 
control, and so certainly is the desire to know its cause. 
The sole question then is, is this desire to be gratified or 
not ? Take, for example, the case of the wetted towel, 
which at first sight appears to be one of the most 
unpromising questions in the list. Shall we tell the 
proposer to repress his curiosity, as the subject is im- 
proper for him to know, and thus interpose our wisdom 
to rescue the boy from the consequences of Nature's 
implanting a desire which acts to his prejudice ? Or, 
recognising the propriety of the question, ho^y are we to 
answer it .-* It is impossible to do so without reference 
to the laws of optics — impossible to answer it without 
making the boy to some extent a natural philosopher. 
You may say that the effect is due to the reflection of 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 69 

light at the common surface of two media of different 
refractive indices. But this answer presupposes on the 
part of the boy a knowledge of what reflection and re- 
fraction are, or reduces you to the necessity of explaining 
them. On looking more closely into the matter, we find 
that our wet towel belongs to a class of phenomena 
exhibited by tabasheer and hydrophane, which liave 
long excited the interest of philosophers. These bodies 
are opaque when dry, but when dipped into water or 
beech-nut oil they become transparent. The towel is 
white for the same reason that snow is white, that foam 
Is white, that pounded quartz or glass is white, and that 
the salt we use at table is white. On quitting one 
medium and entering another, a portion of light is 
always reflected, but with this restriction, the media must 
possess different refractive indices. Thus, when we im- 
merse glass in water, light is reflected from the common 
surface of both, and it is this light which enables us to 
see the glass. But take a transparent solid and immerse 
it in a liquid of the same refractive index as itself, it 
will immediately disappear. 1 remember once dropping 
the eyeball of an ox into water; it vanished as if by 
magic, a bystander actually supposing that the mass 
had been instantly dissolved. This, however, was not the 
case, and a comparison of the refractive index of the 
vitreous humour with that of water cleared up the whole 
matter. The indices were identical, and hence the light 
pursued its way through both bodies as if they formed 
'One continuous mass. In the case of snow, powdered 
quartz, or salt, we have a transparent solid body mixed 
with air ; at everj^ transition from solid to air, or from 
air to solid, a portion of light is reflected ; this takes 
place so often that the light is wholly intercepted, and 



^O PROFESSOR TYNDALL 

thus from the mixture of two transparent todies we 
obtain an opaque one. The case of the towel is pre- 
cisely similar. The tissue is composed of semi-trans- 
parent vegetable fibres, with the interstices between 
them filled with air ; repeated reflection takes place at 
the limiting surfaces of air and fibre, and hence the 
towel becomes opaque like snow or salt. But if we fill 
the interstices of the towel with water, we diminish the 
reflection ; a portion of the light enters the mass, and 
the darkness of the towel is due to its increased trans- 
parency. Thus the hydrophane, tabasheer, the tracing 
paper used by engineers, and many other considerations 
of the highest scientific interest, are involved in the 
simple enquiry of this unsuspecting little boy. 

Again, take the question regarding the rising or falling 
of the dew — a question long agitated, and finally set at 
rest by the beautiful researches of Wells and Melloni, 
I do not think that any boy of average intelligence wilj 
be satisfied with the simple answer that the dew falls. 
He will wish to learn how you know that it falls, anc!^ 
if acquainted with the notions of the middle ages, may 
refer to the opinion of Father Laurus, that, if you fill a 
goose egg with the morning dew and expose it to the 
sun, it will rise like a balloon — a swan's egg being better 
for the experiment than a goose egg. It is impossible 
to give the boy a clear notion of the beautiful pheno- 
menon to which his question refers, without first making 
him acquainted with the radiation and conduction of 
heat. Take, for example, a blade of grass, from which 
one of these orient pearls is depending. During the day 
the grass, and the earth beneath it, possess a certain 
amount of warmth imparted by the sun ; during a serene 
night, heat is radiated from the surface of the grass into 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 7 1 

space, and to supply the loss, there is a flow of heat 
from the interior portions of the blade towards its sur- 
face. Thus the surface loses heat by radiation, and 
gains heat by conduction. Now, in tlie case before us, 
the power of radiation is great, whereas the power of 
conduction is small; the consequence is that the blade 
loses more than it gains, and hence becomes more and 
more refrigerated. The light vapour floating around the 
surface so cooled is precipitated upon it, and there ac- 
cumulates to form the little pearly globe which we call 
a dew-drop. 

Thus the boy finds the simple and homely fact which 
addressed his senses to be the outcome and flower of the 
deepest laws. The fact becomes, in a measure, sanctified 
as an object of thought, and invested for him with a 
beauty for evermore. He thus learns that things which, 
at first sight, seem to stand isolated and without appa- 
rent brotherhood in Nature are united by their causes, 
and finds the detection of these analogies a source of 
perpetual delight. 

To enlist pleasure on the side of intellectual perform- 
ance is a point of the utmost importance ; for the 
exercise of the mind, like that of the body, depends for 
its value upon the spirit in which it is accomplished. 
Every physician knows that something more than mere 
mechanical motion is comprehended under the idea of 
healthful exercise — that, indeed, being most healthful 
which makes us forget all ulterior ends in the mere 
enjoyment of it. What, for example, could be substi- 
tuted for the jubilant shout of the playground, where the 
boy plays for the mere love of playing, and without 
reference to physiological laws; while kindly Nature 
accomplishes her ends unconsciously, and makes his very 



72 PROFESSOR TYNDALL 

indifference beneficial to him ? You may have more 
systematic motions, you may devise means for the more 
perfect traction of each particular muscle, but you can- 
not create the joy and gladness of the game, and where 
these are absent, the charm and the health of the 
exercise are gone. The case is similar with mental 
education. Why then should the mind of youth be so 
completely warped from its healthful and happy action, 
so utterly withdrawn from those studies to which its 
earliest tendencies point, and in the cultivation of which 
the concurrence of its ardour would powerfully tend to 
the augmentation of its strength, as to leave the man in 
after-life, unless enlightened by his visits to an Institution 
such as that in which we are now assembled, in absolute 
ignorance as to whether the material world is governed 
by law or chance, or indeed whether those phenomena 
which excited his youthful questionings be not really the 
jugglery of Jotuns, or of some other power similar in 
kind ? 

TIt^ study of Physics, as already intimated, consists 
of two processes, which are complementary to each 
other — the tracing of facts to their causes, and tilt 
logical advance from the cause to the fact. In the 
former process, called induction^ certain moral qualities 
come into play. It requires patient industry, and an 
humble and conscientious' acceptance of what Nature 
reveals./The first condition of success is an honest re- 
ceptivity and a willingness to abandon all preconceived 
notions, however cherished, if they be found to con- 
tradict the truth. And if a man be not capable of 
this self-renunciation — this loyal surrender of himself to 
Nature, he lacks, in my opinion, the first mark of a true 
philosopher. jThus the earnest prosecutor of science, 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 73 

who does not work with the idea of producing a sensa- 
tion in the world, who loves the truth better than the 
transitory blaze of to-day's fame, who comes to his task 
with a single eye, finds in that task an indirect means of 
the highest moral culture. And although the virtue of 
the act depends upon its privacy, this sacrifice of self, 
this upright determination to accept the truth, no matter 
how it may present itself — even at the hands of a 
scientific foe, if necessary — carries with it its own re- 
ward. When prejudice is put under foot, and the stains 
of personal bias have been washed away — when a man 
consents to lay aside his vanity and to become Nature's 
organ — his elevation is the instant consequence of his 
humility. You may, it is true, point to the quarrels of 
scientific men, to their struggles for priority, to that 
unpleasant egotism which screams around its little pro- 
perty of discovery like a scared plover about its young. 
I will not deny all this ; but let it be set down to its 
proper account, to the Aveakness — or, if you will — to the 
v/ickedness of Man, but not to the charge of Physical 
Science. 

The second process in physical investigation is deduc- 
tion, or the advance of the mind from fixed principles 
to the conclusions which flow from them. The rules of 
logic are the formal statement of this process, Avhich, 
however, was practised by every healthy mind before 
ever such rules were written. In the study of Physics, 
induction and deduction are perpetually married to 
each other. The man observes, — he strips facts of their 
peculiarities of form, and tries to unite them by their 
essences ; having effected this, he at once deduces, and 
thus checks his induction. Here the grand difference 
between the methods at present followed, and those of 



74 PROFESSOR TYNDALL 

the ancients, becomes manifest. Tiiey were one-sided 
in these matters : they omitted the process of induction, 
and substituted conjecture for observation. They do 
not seem to have possessed sufficient patience to watch 
the slow processes of Nature, and to make themselves 
acquainted with the conditions under which she operates. 
Ignorant of these conditions, they could never penetrate 
her secrets nor master her laws. This master>' not only 
enables us to turn her forces against each otlier, so as to 
protect ourselves from their hostile action, but makes 
them our slaves. By the study of Physics we have 
opened to us treasuries of power of which antiquity 
never dreamed : we lord it over INIatter, but in so doing 
we have become better acquainted with the laws of 
j\Imd ; for to the mental philosopher material Nature 
furnishes a screen against which the human spirit pro- 
jects its own image, and thus becomes capable of self- 
inspection. 

Thus, then, as a means of intellectual culture, tlie 
study of Physics exercises and sharpens observation : it 
brings the most exhaustive logic into play : it compares, 
abstracts, and generalizes, and provides a mental imagery 
admirably suited to tliese processes. The strictest pre- 
cision of thought is everj-where enforced, and prudence, 
foresight, and sagacity are demanded. By its appeals to 
experiment, it continually checks itself, and builds upon 
a sure foundation. 

Thus far we have regarded tlie study of Physics as an 
agent of intellectual culture; but like other things in 
Nature, it subser\es more than a single end. The colours 
of the clouds delight the eye, and, no doubt, accomplish 
moral purposes also; but the self-same clouds hold 
within their fleeces the moisture bv which our fields are 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 75 

rendered fruitful. The sunbeams excite our interest and 
invite our investigation ; but they also extend their 
beneficent influences to our fruits and corn, and thus 
accomplish, not only intellectual ends, but minister, at 
the same time, to oiir material necessities. And so it is 
vv'ith scientific research. While the love of science is a 
sufficient incentive to the pursuit of science, and the 
investigator, in the prosecution of his inquiries, is raised 
above all material considerations, the results of his 
labours may exercise a potent influence upon the phy- 
sical condition of Man. This is more often the arrange- 
ment of Nature, than of the scientific investigator him- 
self; for he usually pursues his object without regard to 
its practical applications. And let him who is dazzled 
by such applications — who sees in the steam-engine and 
the electric telegraph the highest embodiment of human 
genius and the only legitimate object of scientific re- 
search, beware of prescribing conditions to the investi- 
gator. Let him beware of attempting to substitute for 
that simple love with which the votary of science pur- 
sues his task, the calculations of what he is pleased to 
call utility. The scientific man must approach Nature 
in his own way ; for if you invade his freedom by your 
so-called practical considerations, it may be at the 
expense of those qualities on which his success as a 
discoverer depends. Let the self-styled practical man 
look to those from the fecundity of wlrose thought he, 
and thousands like him, have sprung into existence. 
Were they inspired in their first inquiries by the calcu- 
lations of utility ? Not one of them. They were often 
forced to live low and lie hard, and to seek a compensa- 
tion for their penury in the delight which their favourite 
pursuits afforded them. In the words of one well auali- 



'Jb PROFESSOR TYNDALL 

ficd to .speak upon this subject, " I say not merely look 
at the pittance of men like John Dalton, or the voluntary 
starvation of the late Graff; but compare what is con- 
sidered as competency or affluence by your Faradays, 
Licbigs, and Herschels, with the expected results of a 
life of successful commercial enterprise : then compare 
the amount of mind put forth, the work done for society 
in either case, and you will be constrained to allow that 
the former belong to a class of workers who, properly 
speaking, are not paid, and cannot be paid for their 
work, as indeed it is of a sort to which no payment 
could stimulate." 

But while the scientific investigator, who, standing 
upon the frontiers of human knowledge, and aiming at 
the conquest of fresh soil from the surrounding region of 
the unknown, makes the discovery of truth his exclusive 
object for the time, he cannot but feel the deepest 
interest in the practical application of the truth dis- 
covered. There is something ennobling in the triumph 
of Mind over Matter : apart even from its uses to society, 
there is something sublime in the idea of Man having 
tamed that wild force which rushes through the tele- 
graphic wire, and made it the minister of his will. Our 
attainments in these directions appear to be commen- 
surate with our needs. We had already subdued horse 
and mule, and obtained from them all the service which 
it was in their power to render : we must either stand 
still, or find more potent agents to execute our purposes. 
To 5.tand still, however, was not in the plan of Him who 
made motion a condition of life, and, as if by His high 
arrangement, the steam-engine appeared. Remember 
that these are but new things ; that it is not long since 
we struck into the scientific methods which produced 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 7? 

these extraordinary results. We cannnot for an instant 
regard them as the final achievements of science, but 
rather as an earnest of what she is yet to do. They 
mark our first great advances upon the dominion of 
Nature. Animal strength fails, but here are the forces 
which hold the world together, and the instincts and 
successes of Man assure him that these forces arc his 
when he is wise enough to command them. 

In the title of this Lrecture, the study of Physics as a 
branch of education " for all classes " is spoken of I am 
not quite sure that I understand the meaning intended 
to be conveyed by the words " all classes ; " and I have 
regarded the question with reference to those mental 
qualities v»'hich have been distributed without reference 
to class. As an instrument of intellectual culture, the 
study of Physics is profitable to all : as bearing upon 
special functions, its value, though not so great, is still 
more tangible. Why, for example, should Members of 
Parliament be ignorant of the subjects concerning which 
they are called upon to legislate ? In this land of prac- 
tical physics, why should they be unable to form an 
independent opinion upon a physical question .'' Why 
should the senator be left at the mercy of interested 
disputants when a scientific question is discussed, until 
he deems the nap a blessing w^hich rescues him from the 
bewilderments of the committee-room .'' The education 
which does not supply the want here referred to, fails in 
its duty to England. With regard to our working people, 
in the ordinary sense of the term working, the study of 
Physics would, I imagine, be profitable, not only as a 
means of mental culture, but also as a moral influence 
to woo these people from pursuits which now degrade 
them, A man's reformation oftcncr depends upon the 



Jo PROFESSOR TYNDALL 

indirect than upon the direct action of the will. The 
will must be exerted in the choice of employment which 
shall break the force of temptation by erecting a barrier 
against it. The drunkard, for example, is in a perilous 
condition if he content himself merely Avith saying, or 
swearing, that he will avoid strong drink. His thoughts, 
if not attracted by another force, will revert to the public- 
house, and to rescue him permanently from this you 
must give him an equivalent. By investing the objects 
of hourly intercourse with an interest which prompts 
reflection, new enjoyments would be opened to the 
working mail, and every one of these would be a point 
of force to protect him against temptation. Besides this, 
our factories and our foundries present an extensive field 
of observation, and were those who work in them ren- 
dered capable, by previous culture, of appreciating what 
they sec, the results to science would be incalculable. 
Who can say w^at intellectual Samsons are at the 
present moment toiling with closed eyes in the mills and 
forges of Manchester and Birmingham ? Grant these 
Samsons sight, give them some knowledge of Physics, 
and you multiply the chances of discovery, and with 
them the prospects of national advancement/ In our 
multitudinous technical operations, we are constantly 
playing with forces where our ignorance is often the 
cause of our destruction. J There are agencies at work in 
a locomotive of which the maker of it probably never 
dreamed, but which nevertheless may be sufficient to 
convert it into an engine of death. Again, when --ve 
reflect on the intellectual condition of the people who 
work in our coal mines, those terrific explosions which 
occur from time, to time need not astonish us. If these 
men possessed sufficient physical knowledge, I doubt 



ON tHE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 79 

not, from the operatives themselves would emanate a 
system by which these shocking accidents might be 
effectually avoided. If they possessed the knowledge, 
their personal interests would furnish the necessary sti- 
mulus to its practical application, and thus two ends 
would be served at the same time — the elevation of tlie 
men and the diminution of the calamity. 

In what I have said regarding mental processes, I have 
described things as they reveal themselves to my own 
eyes, and have been enacted in my own limited practice. 
In doing this, I have been supported- by the belief that 
there is one mind common to us all ; and that if I be 
true to the expression of this mind, even in a small par- 
ticular, the truth will attest itself by a response in the 
convictions of my hearers. There may be the same 
difference between the utterance of two individuals of 
different ranges of intellectual power and experience on 
a subject like the present, as between "The Descent 
from the Cross," by Rubens, and the portrait of a 
spaniel dog. Nevertheless, if the portrait of the spaniel 
be true to nature, it recommends itself as truth to the 
human mind, and excites, in some degree, the interest 
»^.,^that truth ever inspires. Thus far I have endeavoured 
j. to keep all tints and features which really do not belong 
to the portrait of my spaniel, apart from it, and I ask 
your permission to proceed a little further in the same 
manner, and to refer to a fact Or two in addition to those 
already cited, which presented themselves to my notice 
during my brief career as a teacher in the establishment 
already alluded to. The facts, though extremely humble, 
and deviating in some slight degree from the strict sub- 
ject of the present discourse, may yet serve to illustrate 
an educational principle. 



So PROFESSOR TYNDALL 

Oi}c of the duties which fell to my share, during the 
period to which I have referred, was the instruction of a 
class in mathematics, and I usually found that Euclid 
and the ancient geometry generally, when addressed to 
the understanding, formed a very attractive study for 
youth. But it was my habitual practice to withdraw the 
boys from the routine of the book, and to appeal to their 
self-power in the treatment of questions not compre- 
hended in that routine. At first, the change from the 
Ijeaten track usually excited ajittle aversion : the youth 
felt like a child amid strangers ; but in no single instance 
have I found this aversion to continue. When utterly 
disheartened, I have encouraged the boy by that anecdote 
of Newton, where he attributes the difference between 
him and other men, inainly to his own patience; or of 
Mirabeau, when he ordered his servant, who had stated 
something to be impossible, never to use that stupid 
word again. Thus cheered, he has returned to his task 
with a smile, which perhaps had something of doubt 
in it, but which, nevertheless, evinced a resolution to 
try again. I have seen the boy's eye brighten, and, at 
length, with a pleasure of which the ecstacy of Archi- 
medes was but a simple expansion, heard him exclaim, 
" I have it, sir." * The consciousness of self-power, thus 
awakened, was of immense value; and, animated by it, 
the progress of the class was astonishing. It was often 
my custom to give the boys their choice of pursuing 
their propositions in the book, or of trying their strength 
on others not to be found there. Never in a single in- 
stance have I known the book to be chosen. I was ever 
ready to assist when I deemed help needful, but my 
offers of assistance were habitually declined. The boys 
fiad tasted the swccLs of intellectual conquest, and 



ON THE STUDY OF rilYSICS. 8 1 

demanded victories of their own. I have seen their dia- 
grams scratched on the walls, cut into the beams upon 
the playground, and numberless other illustrations of the 
living interest, they took in the subject. As regards 
experience in teaching, I was a mere fledgling at that 
time : I knew nothing of the rules of pedagogics, as the 
Germans name it ; but I adhered to the spirit indicated at 
the commencement of this discourse, and endeavoured to 
make geometry a means and not a hrancJt, of education. 
The experiment was successful, and some of the most 
delightful hours of my existence have been spent in 
marking the vigorous and cheerful expansion of mental 
power, when appealed to in the manner I have described. 
And then again, the pleasure wc all experienced was 
enhanced when wc applied our mathematical knowledge 
to the solution of physical problems. Many objects of 
hourly contact had thus a new interest and significance 
imparted to them. The swing, the see-saw, the tension 
of the giant-stride ropes, the fall and rebound of the 
football, the advantage of a small boy over a large one 
when turning short, particularly in slippery weather; all 
became subjects of investigation. Supposing a lady to 
stand before a looking-glass, of the same height as her- 
self, it was required to know how much of the gla.ss was 
really useful to the lady } and we learned, with great 
pleasure, the economic fact that she might dispense with 
the lower half and sec her whole figure notwithstanding. 
We also felt deep interest in ascertaining from the hum 
of a bee the number of times the little insect flaps its 
wings in a second. Following up our researches upon 
the pendulum, we were interested to learn how Colonel 
Sabine had made it the means of determining the figure 
of the earth ; and we were also startled by the inference 



82 PROFESSOR TYNDALL 

which the pendulum enabled us to draw, that if the 
diurnal velocity of the earth were seventeen times its 
present amount, the centrifugal force at the equator 
would be precisely equal to the force of gravitation, and 
that hence an inhabitant of those regions would have 
the same tendency to fall upwards as downwards. All 
these things were sources of wonder and delight to us : 
we could not but admire the perseverance of Man which 
had accomplished so much ; and then when we remem- 
bered that we were gifted with the same powers, and 
had the same great field to work in, our hopes arose 
that at some future day we might possibly push the 
subject a little further, and add our own victories to the 
conquests already won. 

I know I ought to apologize to you for dwelling so 
long upon this subject. But the days I spent among 
these youthful philosophers made a deep impression on 
me. I learned among them something of myself and 
of human nature, and obtained some notion of a teacher's 
vocation. If there be one profession in England of para- 
mount importance, I believe it to be that of the school- 
master ; and if there be a position where selfishness and 
incompetence do most serious mischief, by lowering the 
moral tone and exciting contempt and cunning where 
reverence and noble truthfulness ought to be the feelings- 
evoked, it is that of the governor of a school. When a 
man of enlarged heart and mind comes among boys, — 
when he allows his being to stream through them, and 
observes the operation of his own character evidenced 
in the elevation of theirs, — it would be idle to talk of 
the position of such a man being honourable. It is a 
blessed position. The man is a blessing to himself and 
to all around him. Such men, I believe, arc to be found 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 83 

in England, and it behoves those who busy themselves 
with the mechanics of education at the present day, to 
seek them out. For no matter what means of culture' 
may be chosen, whether physical or philological, success 
must ever mainly depend upon the amount of life, love, 
and earnestness, which the teacher himself brings Avith 
him to his vocation.* 

* The following extract from a journal is, I think, too good to be omitted 
here. The •writer of it — a pupil of Dirichlet and Steiner — would doubtless 
have felt himself more at home in dealing with elliptic functions than with 
the definitions of Euclid. But the manner in which he contrived to render 
the latter mysteries evident to a light-headed little boy, does credit to 
another faculty than his mere mathematical one, and will, I trust, prove as 

pleasant to the reader as it has to me. " K stammers distressingly, 

and this has impeded his progress very much. I have often passed him in 
the class, knowing that I could not get any intelligible answer from him, 
and had it not been for his eloquent eyes, which said, ' I know it. Sir, if I 
could but speak,' I might have mistaken him for a dunce, and thus done 
him great injustice, Tlirough his love of mischief, however, and his in- 
ability to cope with his schoolfellows, on account of his defective utterance, 
it was evident that he was losing interest in his work, or rather that he had 
never felt much interest in it, and it became necessary to awaken him. 
One day, after he had been more noisy and mischievous than usual, I told 
him rather sternly to put on his cap and follow me. He did so, and I 
walked forward, while he, in a state of anxious suspense, walked behind 

me. After some moments' silence, I asked, ' Do you know, K , what 

I am going to do with you? ' * Ne — ne — ne — no. Sir,' he replied. ' Well,' 
1 said, ' I will tell you. I have spoken to you often enough, to no purpose, 
and now I intend to make you do better for the future.' We walked for- 
ward for some distance, and at length, putting my ann quietly around his 
neck, I broke silence once more, ' Can you tell me what an angle is, my 
boy ? ' * Ye — ye — ye — yes, Sir, an angle is a — a — a — a — ,' he could get no 
further, and turned his eyes upon me beseechingly. ' Well,' I replied to 
this silent appeal, * go and pull two stalks of grass and show me what an 
angle is.' This he did, and with the grass stalks continued to answer my 
questions on the geometrical definitions. We turned into a stubble field — 
by tliis time he had lost all fear, and could speak quite distinctly — ' What 
is a right angled triangle ? ' I asked. ' It has all its angles right angles. 
Sir.' 'Indeed,' I replied, taking my arm from around his neck, 'it has 
three right angles, has it ? will you just kneel down ? ' He saw his mistake, 
stammered ' two,' looked at me piteously and hesitated. ' On your knee:-, 



84 PROFESSOR TYNDALL 

Such are some of the thoughts which have floated 
before me, in a more or less distracted manner, in refer- 
ence to the present hour; and nobody can be more 
conscious of their manifold imperfections than I am 
myself. I have throughout been less anxious to make 
out a case for Physics than to state the truth ; and I 
confess that the Lecture of this day v/eek causes me to 
doubt, whether you are not entitled to expect from me 
a more emphatic statement of the claims of the science 
which I now represent, than that which I have laid 
before you. When I saw your Lecturer reduced to the 
necessity of pleading for Science, and meekly claiming 
for it, from the Institution which we are accustomed to 
regard as the highest in this land, a recognition equal 
to that accorded to Philology, I confess that the effect 
was to excite a certain revolutionary tendency in a mind 
which is usually tranquil almost to apathy in these 
matters. As the pole of a magnet acting upon soft iron 
induces in the latter a condition opposed to its own, 
so the irrationality of those who cast this slight upon 
Science tends to excite an opposite error on the part 
of their antagonists, and to cause them, in retaliation, 
to underrate the real merits of Philology. But is there 
no mind in England large enough to see the value of 
both, and to secure for each of them fair play ? Let us 

Sir, I cried, and lie knelt down, while I, falling on my knees beside him, 
eaid, ' Now pull up some stubble, and make me a triangle having cither two 
or three right angles.' At once he saw his error, and the absurdity of our 
position, as we knelt together, making geometrical diagrams with stubble. 
Springing to his feet, he shook with laughter — ' It has only one right angle, 
Hi: — only one, of course !' I responded, 'Of course.' With my arm roiuid 
his neck, we turned homewards, and continued our lesson successfully. 
' This is the punishment I had in store for you,' I said, when we reached 
home. 'Now go, and transgress no more,' to which his eyes responded, 
'I will, Sir.'" 






ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 85 

not make this a fight of partisans — let the gleaned 
wealth of antiquity be showered into the open breast ; 
but while we " unsphere the spirit of Plato " and listen 
with delight to the lordly music of the past, let us honour 
by adequate recognition the genius of our own time. 
Let me again remind you that the claims of that science 
which finds in me to-day its unrlpened advocate, are 
based upon the natural relations subsisting between 
Man and the world in which he dwells. Here, on the 
one side, we have the apparently lawless shifting of 
phenomena ; on the other side, mind, which requires 
law for its equilibrium, and in obedience to its own in- 
destructible instincts, believes that these phenomena arc 
reducible to law. To chasten this apparent chaos is a 
problem which man's Creator has set before him. The 
world was built in order : it is the visual record of its 
Maker's logic, and to us have been trusted the will and 
power to grapple Avith the mighty argument. Descend- 
ing for a moment from this high ground to considerations 
which lie closer to us as a nation — as a land of gas and 
furnaces, of steam and electricity : as a land which 
science, practically applied, has made great in peace 
and mighty in war : — I ask you whether this " land of 
old and just renown," has not a right to expect from 
her institutions a culture which shall embrace something 
more than declension and conjugation .'* They can place 
physical science upon its proper basis ; they can check 
the habit, now too common, of regarding science solely 
as an instrument of material prosperity ; they can dwell 
with effect upon its nobler use, and raise the national 
mind to the contemplation of it as the last development 
of that "increasing purpose" which runs through the 
ages and widens the thoucrhts of men. 



ON THE EDUCATIONAL CLAIMS OF 
BOTANICAL SCIENCE. 

A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE LONDON 
SOCIETY OF ARTS. 



BY 

ARTHUR HENFREY, ESQ., F.R.S., F.L.S. 



^f. 



4^ 



ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. 



The classification of the sciences, and the investiga- 
tion of their relations one to another, must necessarily 
be a subject of great interest to those who pursue the 
special branches of knowledge in a philosophical spirit, 
not as the means of acquiring a body of abstruse ideas, 
but for the purpose of contributing to the common 
stock of classified facts and natural laws upon which 
the education, and consequently the civilization, of the 
human race depends. 

A votary of the Natural History sciences is especially 
led to the exaniination of the general relations of his 
pursuits, from the great degree in which they seem to 
the common observer to be removed from the practical 
business of life. It is a question to which his social and 
sympathetic feelings especially attract him ; and, there- 
fore, it is with great gratification that I avail myself of 
this opportunity of insisting publicly upon the claims 
of Botany to the attention of all engaged in education. 

The most remarkable of the classifications of the 
sciences which have been given to the world, may be 
briefly characterized by arrangement under three heads, 
indicating the totally distinct points of view from which 
they set out, viz. : — 

I. Those based upon the sources of knowledge. 



90 PROFESSOR HENFREY 

2. Those based upon the purpose for which the knov.'- 
ledge is sought ; and 

3- Those based upon the nature of the objects studied. 

I. The classifications of the first kind, — those which 
arrange the various branches of knowledge according 
to the character of the intellectual methods and processes 
by means of which they are cultivated, are termed sub- 
jective, as regarding alone the nature of the recipient 
mind, or subject 

If we disregard the technicalities of metaphysics, cr 
rather ps\-cholog>', we may conveniently restrict our 
analysis of this, to the distinction of tA\-o qualities, those 
of perception and reflection. 

By perception, by the aid of the senses, we observe 
facts : these facts may be either independent of our in- 
fluence, when we call the observation proper ; or they 
may be the result of special contrivance on our parts, 
when the mode of observation is called experimentation; 
and, again, we may receive information of observed facts 
by testimony of others. All these processes involve the 
acquisition of experience, direct or indirect, of phenomena; 
the sciences pursued especially by their means are called 
experijfiental, and the truths of experience 2.tq facts. 

Reflection is the action of the reasoning faculty, ac- 
cording to its own laws, upon the simple ideas furnished 
by perception, deahng with certain properties of these, 
which it abstracts from the facts of perception, and, by 
the comparison and classification of them, arriving at 
generalizations, principles, laws, and the like, known by 
the collective name of theory. Those sciences which 
depend almost entirely (for none do solely) upon the 
reason, are called rational, abstract, or theoretical 
sciences 



ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. 9 1 

Now, when we consider that there exists no science 
purely abstract from its origin, and that the measure of 
advancement of every science is the degree to which it 
has co-ordinated the ideas with which it deals under 
general propositions and laws, it becomes obvious that 
the division into experimental and abstract is totally in- 
applicable to the existing state of science. 

2. The classifications according to purpose, the division 
into speculative and applied or practical sciences, fail 
almost in the same way, since the progression of every 
science is marked, step by step, by the removal of certain 
truths from the position of abstract theories, interesting 
only to the learned, into the rank of axioms from which 
practical results of the greatest value to mankind are 
derived. 

3. The third point of view is that from which we re- 
gard only the objects of our study, without considering 
either the faculties or processes by which we obtain our 
knowledge, or the advantages we may derive from its 
acquisition. 

When we reflect upon the ordinary operations of our 
reasoning faculties, upon the common rules of logic, it 
becomes evident that this last mode of classification is 
the only one that can be called rational, since it is the 
only one which proceeds, according to the indispensable 
rule, of advancing from the most simple to the more 
complex of the ideas, Avhich we wish to co-ordinate in 
our minds. The other two modes, the division into ex- 
perimental and rational, abstract and applied sciences, 
must not only, from their nature, continually shift their 
ground as knowledge progresses, but they both set out 
from considerations of a highly complex character, which 
it would be vain to attempt to analyze, until a very large 



92 PROFESSOR IIENFREY 

portion of the whole field of human inquiry has been 
cleared. 

The objective mode of classification, which seems to 
have been first promulgated in a full and adequate 
manner by Descartes, has been revived of late years 
from a long oblivion, and it asserts its claim so clearly 
and evidently, and proves to harmonize so completely 
with the general direction which scientific inquiry has 
taken in modern times, that those who have once become 
acquainted with its characters can scarcely hesitate to 
adopt it. 

The principle is laid down by Descartes in his 
" Method," in the following terms : — " To conduct my 
thoughts in order, commencing with the objects which 
are simplest and easiest to know, so as to rise gradually 
to the knowledge of the more compound ; " and in a 
subsequent chapter he traces the course of his inquiries 
through mathematics, general physics, botany, zoology, 
and the sciences relative to man, according to the pro- 
gressive complexity of the objects of his study. 

In the chain or series thus formed, there not only 
exists a logical sequence, a relation of progression of the 
number of kinds of ideas with which we have to deal, 
but there is a relation of dependence, insomuch that 
each science rests upon that preceding it for a certain 
proportion of its data, and in turn constitutes the 
necessary basis for that which follows, — added to which 
we find the history of the development of the individual 
sciences bringing a striking confirmation of the validity 
of the principle, by showing that, although the first 
steps were made almost simultaneously in all the great 
divisions of science here laid down, the most simple 
have, from their nature, outstripped, in exact proportion 



ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. 93 

to their relative simplicity, those which involve more 
complicated classes of generalities ; so that, as it has 
been well expressed, the logical anhxcdcnts have always 
been the historical antecedents^ 

The objective classification of the sciences may be 
briefly explained here. 

The primary divisions depend upon the groups or 
classes of truths, which must be arranged according to 
their simplicity, or, what arhounts to the same, their 
generality : in other words, the small number of quali- 
ties attached to the notions with v/hich they deal. 

The mathematical sciences deal with ideas which 
may be abstracted entirely from all material existence, 
retaining only the conceptions of space and number. 

The physical sciences require, in addition, the actual 
recognition of matter, or force, or both, in addition to 
relations in space and time, but they are still confined 
to universal properties of matter. 

The biological sciences are distinguished, in a most 
marked manner, by their dependence ; the laws of life 
relate to objects having relations in space and time, and 
having material existence ; they display, moreover, in 
their existence, a dependence upon physical laws, which 
form their medium ; but they are distinguished by the 
presence of organization and life, characterized by a 
peculiar mobility and power of resistance to the physical 
forces, and an individuality of a different kind from that 
found in inorganic matter. 



* This is the view of Comte, but there are other conditions which have 
determined the order in wliich the various relations among phenomena 
were discovered. IMr. Herbert Spencer has stated these further con- 
ditions, and the point is so important, that I have placed an extract from 
his statement in the Appendix. — [Ed.] 



94 PROFESSOR HENFREY 



^ 



The sciences relating to man, to human society, arc 
removed another step, by the interference, among all the 
preceding laws, of those relating to the human mind in 
its fullest sense. 

We thus obtain four groups. The following table 
illustrates theje remarks : — 

{ Abstract or absolute MatheniAticiil Sciences. 

_, , 1 (to Matter. . Ph^-sical Sciences. 

1 ruths . j i^elative • • •] to Life . . Biological Sciences. 

( (to Man . . Social Sciences. 

These four groups include respectively a number of 
secondar}' sciences derived from, dependent on. or form- 
ing essential constituents of the groups. With these wo 
shall only so far engage ourselves here as relates to 
the subdivisions of biological science. Certain common 
characters run through these, life and organization being 
attributes of all the objects with which they are con- 
versant. Physiolog}" and morphology' traverse the whole 
field of organic nature, animal as well as vegetable. 
But as animals and vegetables exhibit, in mass, a mani- 
fest dift'erence in the degree of complexity of the vital 
powers and the organization, — since the animal king- 
dom exhibits qualities whicli are superadded to, and 
conjoined ^^•ith those which it shares with the vegetable 
kingdom, — it becomes necessary to distinguish the 
branches of biology relating to these, and to divide 
these sciences under two heads, Botany and Zoology*. 

The greater simplicity of the physiological processes 
of vegetables, is alone sufficient to indicate their in- 
feriority, or antecedent position in the scale of natural 
objects ; and this is further confirmed, in accordance 
with the principle of objective classification, by their 
greater generality, since they extend through the sue- 



ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. 95 

ceeding group, in the vegetative or organic life of 
animals, while the animal life proper is restricted to the 
latter. And this physiological distinction is in agree- 
ment with a morphological or anatomical difference ; for 
not only is the apparatus of organic life more compli- 
cated in animals, but these possess a system of organs, 
the nervous system, which is not represented in any way 
in vegetables, and constitutes the especial instrument or 
seat of that kind of spontaneity which is the most striking- 
characteristic of animal life. 

These observations will suffice to give an indication 
of the place which Botany holds in the natural classifi- 
cation of the sciences generally, according to the objects 
of their investigation. 

Let us turn now to the methods employed in the 
various sciences, in order to ascertain the relative posi- 
tion of that with which we are engaged, in this respect 
also. Those sciences devoted to the investigation of 
purely abstract truths, the mathematical sciences, are 
free from the necessity of applying the perceptive facul- 
ties, or senses, since the objects of their pursuit are ideas 
from which have been abstracted all qualities having ma- 
terial existence. Those sciences, geometry and algebra, 
proceed by reasoning, and calculation, which has been 
well designated an abridged mode of reasoning. When 
we advance to the examination of material phenomena, 
the faculties of observation come into play, and, in the 
first place, in application to facts over which we can 
exercise no control ; thus, in astronomy, pure obser\''a- 
tion is added to the reasoning and calculation used in 
mathematics. In the investigation of the physical phe- 
nomena of our own globe, however, we have greater 
scope, and are able to prepare facts for observation — to 



96 PROFESSOR HENFREY 

experiment^ as it is termed. In the biological sciences, 
reasoning, obsen^ation, and experiment, all have place ; 
but observation of unprepared facts is far more cm- 
ployed than experiment. Observation, however, as used 
in biology, is very different in its character from ob- 
servation in physics. Not to speak of the greater com- 
plexity of phenomena, increasing in great proportion 
the danger of errors of sense, or first perceptions, a new 
difficulty arises from the character of the objects ob- 
served. In physics, observation of any given object — 
a ray of light, a chemical salt, or the like — is sufficient 
to afford us conclusions as to all existing objects of the 
same kind : any one specimen will serve as a type of 
the rest ; and a renewal of the observation, under pre- 
cisely the same condition, will only repeat and verify it. 
But in the case of animals or plants, no single example 
will serve as a type of its kiiid. Thus, in astronomy, a 
single observed fact becomes a datum ; in terrestrial 
physics, any given example of an object may be experi- 
mented on, and all the characters of the kind of object 
ascertained ; while in biology, the individual example, 
transitory and always undergoing change, being inca- 
pable of affording, at any given time, all the characters 
of its kind, it becomes necessary to derive the specific 
type — \\\Q permanent nniiy, as it was called by Bufibn — f 
from comparison of a more or less considerable number 
of examples, of all ages and placed in all conditions. | 
Here, then, we are compelled to generalize, from the I 
very first step in our progress. | 

The words, light, heat, iron, gold, oxygen, or the like, 
do not necessarily connote any attributes, imply no 
classification or grouping of separate things ; so that we J 
could not say, " a light " (except colloquially in the sense 



ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. 97 

of a source of light, which would imply a generalization), 
" a gold," " an oxygen,'* &c. But when we speak of a 
horse, an oak, or any animal or vegetable, we use a 
general name, connoting certain characters or attributes, 
belonging to a class of objects, that is, an indefinite 
number of objects, separated by those attributes from 
all other objects. 

Now, as the classes or kinds of objects forming the 
basis of all reasoning toward laws in botany and zoology 
exist in enormous numbers, it is evident that comparative 
observation, by means of which the groups are established, 
must occupy a most prominent place in their processes, 
since the classification of things is one of the necessary 
preliminaries to the induction which seeks the ascertain- 
ment of law. 

In dwelling upon these differences, however, it is im- 
portant to point out that the methods of all the stiences 
are fundamentally one, modified only in secondary par- 
ticulars ; and the division of the sciences into deductive 
and. inductive indicates merely a difference in the de- 
gree of advancement of the respective sciences towards 
perfection. Every science is at first inductive; but in 
proportion to the small number of qualities possessed 
by its objects, it rises more quickly to certain abstract 
generalizations, which suffice to represent all the neces- 
sary characteristics of its individual objects or unities, 
and then deduction enables us to derive all the possible 
conditions of their relations from these. Mathematics 
have long" stood in this position. Physics lagged behind 
long, from the overhaste of the ancients to reach their 
generalizations witliout passing through the series of 
inductions from facts which were indispensably requisite 
for the secure foundation of deductive physics. In these 



PROFESSOR IIENFREY 



days, however, induction having performed a vast amount 
of work since Bacon gave the great impulse to its appli- 
cation, deduction finds a large and increasing domain in 
physics, where observation is only applied for the pur- 
pose of verification. On the other hand, deduction as 
yet finds little scope in biology, and the attempts of the 
German " philosophers of nature " are not of a character 
to attract us to the pursuit of this method ; nevertheless, 
it is evident that when the bases have been securely laid 
by induction, deduction finds as great a scope here as 
elsewhere. 

A few words must still be added respecting the in- 
ductive method in natural history. Bacon defines in- 
duction as " constructing axioms from the senses and 
particulars, by ascending continually and gradually till 
it finally arrives at the most general axioms," and sub- 
sequently he warns us against what he calls "anticipa- 
tions," meaning hypotheses. But, however valuable his 
cautions were in the state of science in those days, it is 
evident that this precept of avoiding " anticipation^ " is 
the advice to abdicate the most valuable attributes of 
the human mind. Indeed, he remarks in a later passage, 
that his " method of discovering the sciences is such as 
to leave little to the acuteness and strength of wit, and 
indeed, rather to level wit and intellect." And those 
who have possessed acuteness and strength of wit, and 
who have most advanced the natural sciences since his 
day, have, in return, departed from the rigorous method 
of induction, and .by this alone rendered possible the 
rapid progress of their sciences. 

For in natural history — to speak of this alone — it is 
rarely in our power to ascertain all the particulars 
requisite for any given induction — it is scarcely ever 



ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. 99 

possible to use this demonstrative induction. We are 
constantly obliged to derive a general consequence from 
a portion of the particular cases which it ought to rest 
upon, and In such cases we anticipate the agreement of 
the rest, basing the hypothesis upon analogy — one of the 
most important instruments in biological reasonings. 
In this way we arrive, not at absolute certainties, but at 
great probabilities, which are then tested by the various 
modes of verification, before they are admitted into the 
rank of truths. Thus this reasoning from analogy 
or tentative induction, comes to occupy a front rank 
with us, and is in reality of far greater utility for the 
advancement of science than the pure demonstrative 
induction ; at the same time, it is a process which 
requires to be employed with the greatest circumspec- 
tion, and under the most rigid control both of observa- 
tion and reasoning. And this gives the methods of 
natural history a high value as intellectual discipline ; 
for the cases in which inductions have to be made, or 
judgments to be formed in common life, are most 
frequently of this kind. Of the particulars which will 
be comprised in our generalization, only a certain 
number are accessible to observation. 

We will now direct our attention to some further 
considerations regarding the relations of botany, as one 
of the biological sciences, to those preceding it in the 
classification we have adopted. That branch of physics 
which immediately precedes it is chemistry, the most 
special of the physical sciences, and its relations with 
this it will be sufficient for us to examine among the 
antecedents. 

Chemistry, like the biological sciences, penetrates into 
the intimate constitution of natural bodies, and more- 



100 



PROFESSOR HENFREY 



over, the bodies subject to its domain exhibit a kind of 
individuality not dependent upon ideas of number, 
density, colour, &c. alone, but upon this said intimate 
constitution. We arrive here at the formation of certain 
abstract notions, for the purpose of classification, which 
include in the particulars from which they are derived, 
both statical and dynamical characters. These abstrac- 
tions refer to the idea of a species, which, however, is far 
more general here than in botany or zoology. A species 
in chemistry is a definite compound of two or more 
elements, in obedience to certain general laws, possessing 
certain definite characters, by which it may be known 
from all other species ; the relation between the objects 
represented in this conception is one of identity in all 
respects but that of simple material continuity ; the in- 
dividuality of separate natural objects belonging to the 
given species depends solely upon their being mecha- 
nically separated from each other. There do indeed 
exist varieties in chemical species analogous to the 
varieties of species in living nature, but" these partake 
of the same unstable individuality, and depend upon 
physical causes of great generality. Thus the allotropic 
conditions of some chemical substances, and even 
perhaps the crystalline or amorphous states of many, 
may be regarded as varieties of this kind. These 
species are remarkable, not only from the generality of 
their nature, but from their immobility. The only pos- 
sible change in a chemical species is its conversion into 
other species, or transformation, in which the relations 
become entirely changed, and the name altered. There 
is nothing like development here, — the gradual unfolding 
by assimilation and transform.ation of material received 
from without. 



ON THE STUDY OF EOTANY. 101 

In the organic kingdoms the idea of the species is an 
abstraction from very different facts. The objects to 
which it refers have a separate individuahty, dependant 
upon characters non-existent in inorganic bodies. They 
are incapable of transformation, but susceptible of 
change according to certain laws; and while the 
chemical individual is homogeneous, and can only be 
divided into parts, of which each equally well represents 
the species, the biological individual is divisible in parts 
of different kinds, which have .relations of harmony 
and continuity, but by no means of homogeneity, 
these parts making up together what constitutes the 
organism. Thus we see a distinct gradation between 
chemistry and biology, in reference to the generality 
of the notion which forms the basis of all classification 
in each. 

In biology itself we find that the notion of the indivi- 
dual is modified in an analogous manner, when we carry 
it up from the vegetable into the animal kingdom ; at 
all events, in those subjects of the latter, in which 
animality is most clearly manifest. 

In regard to taxonomy, then, or classification, botany 
stands between chemistry and zoology. 

In reference to the qualities of form which make 
their first appearance in minerals, plants show an ad- 
vance upon the inorganic world, since the angular solid 
figures, bounded by plane surfaces subject to the 
simplest laws of geometry, soon become complicated 
with figures bounded by curves; and in the plants 
which produce a stem the form is dependant upon the 
properties of spiral curves. In the animal kingdom the 
bilateral symmetry, which is only traceable in the ap- 
pendages of the trunk in plants, becomes the general 



102 PROFESSOR HENFREY 

riile in all, except certain of the larger groups ; tliis is 
manifestly a further departure from the geometrical 
forms of crystals, and indicates a gradation in advance 
of the forms of plants ; the more especially when we 
remember that the appendages of the trunk are the 
organs of nutrition and reproduction, therefore of life in 
plants; while in animals, where the vegetative life is 
subordinate to a higher, these organs are progressively 
more and more completely hidden and inclosed, and the 
variations of outward form depend upon a new set of 
developments of the trunk or central axis, forming the 
organs of sense and volition, or animal life. 

The examination of the outward relations of natural 
objects leads to the same co-ordination. Mineral or 
lifeless bodies can only retain their specific identity 
while at rest, that is to say, chemically ; they change in 
accordance with general laws, when brought into contact 
with each other ; and in the change they become trans- 
formed into other species. Animal or vegetable, organized 
or living bodies, constantly manifest action and change ; 
it is in this especially that their life consists ; but in so 
doing they do not lose their specific identity, but rather 
unfold and complete the characters of this. The actions 
performed in the organization are partly of physical and 
chemical nature, depending upon the laws of these 
sciences, but are subject to the regulation of a superior 
power which guides and directs them, rriaintaining itself 
among and through these, but distinct from them. We 
may compare the position of this vital force of organi- 
zation to an architect employing a band of workmen to 
construct a building, he only designing the forms, and 
leaving them to find the materials and mechanical 
appliances. When the whole is finished, or at any time 



ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. IO3 

when the architect is away, the whole might seem, to an 
ignorant observer, solely the result of the labours of the 
workmen ; so we can only see the results of the ope- 
rations of the organic force in the material products, 
originating under physical laws. But when we have 
ascertained the extent of the domains of these physical 
laws, we find that they do not reach far enough to 
account for all. In vegetable life, absorption, evapora- 
tion, diffusion of juices, &c., are physical phenomena ; 
assimilation, respiration, and the like, purely chemical : 
but no physical, no chemical law, throws any light upon 
the process of reproduction, upon the regeneration, dis- 
tribution, and, subdivision of the organic force, upon 
which the maintenance of the living creation especially 
depends, since the physical forces are unceasingly 
striving to destroy it. Vital action must be regarded, 
therefore, as something superadded to chemical or other 
physical action. 

In vital phenomena themselves, the same subdivision 
holds as in the forms. In animals, as a whole, we have 
a striking increase of complexity, by the addition of the 
animal or affective life to the simple organic or vegetable 
life. In vegetables, the existence is characterized by 
phenomena of nutrition and reproduction alone. In this 
there is a relation of servitude to the animal kingdom, 
the latter being wholly dependent on plants for food, 
since these are exclusively capable of assimilating in- 
organic substances ; while animals require these elements 
to be already combined into proximate principles, or 
organic substances. In animals, nutrition and reproduc- 
tion constitute merely the basis for phenomena of sense 
and will. It is obviously unnecessary to pursue this 
relation any further. 



104- PROFESSOR HENFREY 

The relation of botany to the other natural sciences 
may be now regarded as sufficiently ascertained in 
reference to its objects and methods, taken as a whole. 
But it is necessarj", for the proper illustration of the 
relations of this science to tlie other branches of know- 
ledge, to enter more minutely than has yet been done, 
into the cliaracteristics of the science itself. And I may 
premise that the explanations to which we are now 
about to proceed, may be taken generally as equally 
applicable to both branches of biolc^cal science^ Botany 
and Zoology. 

In the abstract part of botany we have to lay down 
three di\nsions, \-i2 : — 

1. Morphologv" (or anatomy), treating of tlie gene- 
ralizations, laws, or principles relating to the form or 
organization of plants. 

2. Ph}-siolog}-, treating of tlie generalizations, laws, 
or principles relating to the acts, or \ital processes of 
plants. 

3. Taxonomy, treating of the principles of ciassirica- 
tion of plants. 

The concrete part of the science consists of the 
natural historj' of plants, in which we study the entire 
set of phenomena presented by indiWdual plants or 
groups of plants, or even parts of plants, with a view 
to practical applications. 

Abstract botany, ph>-tolog)* proper, or, as the Germans 
call it, scientific botany, forms the basis upon which the 
concrete study, or natural history* of plants, must rest ; 
and this latter will be rational and fruitful in apphcation, 
in proportion to the guiding lights furnished by abstract 
science. But it does not follow from this, that it is 
indispensable for even- prosecutor of natural histor}- to 



ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. 10^ 

verify or repeat the propositions of the abstract science • 
in fact, the enunciation and demonstration of them, which 
form the great business of the philosophical botanist, 
would scarcely come within the sphere of possibility for 
the generality of mankind, busied with other matters. 
At the same time, it is an almost indispensable condition 
of success to those who prosecute natural history in a 
concrete form, that they should study and adopt the 
principles which have been ascertained in the abstract 
part of the science ; since otherwise, only chance, or a 
superhuman amount of labour, can ensure their disen- 
tangling the essentials from the mass of complicated 
phenomena which present themselves in every observa- 
tion upon living nature. 

Morphology, or the philosophical anatomy of plants, 
is the branch of science which is devoted to the investi- 
gation of the principles which underlie all the multitudi- 
nous conditions of form presented by the organized 
beings of this kingdom. It proceeds by two paths — an 
analytical and a synthetical — by the analysis or dissec- 
tion of full-grown plants and their structures (including 
their teratological or abnormal conditions), and by 
observation of the gradual development of these from 
the embryonal condition. By the pursuit of these paths 
wc arrive at a double series of the forms of paths ; one 
half resting on the different orders of characters in the 
same species, the other on the different characters of the 
same order in different species. In arranging the parts 
in the first scries, we advance progressively from the 
organic elements to the tissueg, from these to the organs, 
and thence to the entire organism ; in arranging them in 
the second series, we trace the progressive complexity of 
tlic elements, tissues, organs, and organisms, in tlu; dif- 



I06 PROFESSOR HENFREY 

ferent ranks of beings, or in the different stages of 
development of the same being. 

In the first process — simple anatomy — we perform 
the first operation for the investigation of laws, the 
separation of the particular parts; in the second — in 
comparative anatomy, teratology, and embryogeny — we 
are able to make use of analogical reasoning, or tenta- 
tive induction, in two distinct ways, whereby the. agree- 
ment of results gives a degree of certainty to our 
generalisations, which the nature of the objects would 
prevent our acquiring by any other means. 

The same characteristics apply to the modes of inves- 
tigation in physiology (including pathology, or the study 
of abnormal deviations from vital laws), which is pursued 
in a precisely similar manner, but is directed, not to the 
ascertainment of the laws of development of form, but 
the laws of vitality, on which depend the manifestations 
of activity in those forms of organization. 

In each department of the science, morphology and 
physiology, we are led to the recognition of a series 
which must serve as the basis of a natural classification 
of the objects of study. The inductions of these two 
branches lay the foundation of the third, namely, tax- 
onomy; and the classification established upon these 
grounds has a pre-eminent claim to the title of a natural 
classification, since it is found that the conclusions 
derived from morphology and physiology coincide in 
pointing out the rank to be assigned to any organic 
beings, or group of such beings. The form corresponds 
to the function, in the degree of complexity of the laws 
upon which each depends. 

Taxonomy, therefore, rests upon principles obtained 
by induction from morphology and physiology, as these 



ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. IO7 

rest, each upon the basis of comparative anatomy, tera- 
tology, and embryology, and thus a well-established 
classification of organic beings enables us to study any 
one, or any group of them, in its proper order as regards 
complication of organization, and allows of our placing 
any kind previously unknown in its proper situation ; 
while the situation which the object or group of objects 
occupies in the classification, affords us at once a general 
idea of its organization, its mode of life, and with what 
other objects it is to be compared. 

In Botany, the facts of physiology are very general, 
and, in regard to the comparison of different plants, 
would seem scarcely to aid us in the establishment of a 
classification, beyond the constitution of the great groups 
of plants ; but as applied in the co-ordination of the 
different kinds of organs in the same plants, they form 
a most important element in the institution of groups, 
founded on the difference of form of these organs in 
different plants. In other words, the diversity of phy- 
siological phenomena in vegetables is comparatively 
slight, but the diversity of forms of homologous organs 
is very great, and the rank which the diversified forms 
shall hold as characters in a natural classification, de- 
pends upon the physiological value of the organs in 
which they occur. 

It is upon organography that the greater part of the 
details of classification depend ; accurate descriptions 
of the organs whose homologies are ascertained by 
morphological and physiological inductions, constituting 
the materials upon which all the generalizations of tax- 
onomy are finally based. By organography we obtain 
accurate descriptions of the phenomena of form, that 
is to say, representations, in fixed and unequivocal 



I08 PROFESSOR IIENFREY 



I 



language, of the appearances of the objects with which 
the science deals ; and when these are studied in their 
connexion in individual organisms, we obtain such de- 
scriptions of living beings as enable us to compare 
them scientifically with one another. These compari- 
sons lead to the discrimination of resemblances and 
differences. Under the guidance of ascertained laws 
of physiology and morphology, we are enabled to 
separate in these the essential from the inessential ; 
then, by abstraction of the essential resemblances, and 
dropping out of consideration the inessential difTerences, 
we obtain the notion of a type. This notion of a type, 
abstracted from the actual individual representations of 
the species, forms the unit of all natural history classifi- 
cations ; and the groups into which the species are sub- 
sequently successively collected are all founded upon a 
similar principle of abstraction, under this condition — 
that the essentiality of the resemblances becomes pro- 
gressively limited to characters which arc more general 
in a morphological or physiological point of view. 

As tlie taxonomy, or the classification of plants, is 
that department of botany which gives it a special utility 
as a means of mental training ; as it is on this ground, 
above all, that it founds a claim to form a part of 
general education, it may be permitted me to enter into 
some technical details here, to illustrate and enforce the 
propositions just laid down. In the first place, the ter- 
minology of botany demands attention. It is a funda- 
mental condition of the existence of organography, that 
the botanist should possess a rigidly defined technical 
language, a store of descriptive terms, sufficiently 
copious to denote every part and eveiy quality of the 
parts of plants by a distinct name, fixed, and unalterable 



ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. I09 

in the sense in whicli it is employed. The technical 
language of botany, as elaborated by Linnjeus and his 
school, has long been the admiration of logical and 
philosophical writers, and has indeed been carried to 
great perfection. Every word has its definition, and can 
convey but one notion to those who have once mastered 
the language. The technicalities, therefore, of botanical 
language, which are vulgarly regarded as imperfections, 
and as repulsive to the inquirer, are in reality the very 
marks of its completeness, and far from offering a reason 
for withholding the science from ordinary education, 
constitute its great recommendation, as a method of 
training in accuracy of expression and habits of de- 
scribing definitely and unequivocally the observations 
made by the use of the senses. The acquisition of the 
terms applied to the different parts of plants exercises 
the memory, while the mastery of the use of the adjec- 
tives of terminology cultivates, in a most beneficial 
manner, a habit of accuracy and perspicuity In the use 
of language. What is called the nomenclature of botany 
refers to the names given to the abstract notions of 
the kinds of beings dealt with In classification — to the 
species, genera, families, and so on. These refer not 
merely to the possession of particular attributes, but 
carry with them the idea of those attributes being dis- 
tinctive of a kind of things ; that is, they carry with 
them not only their definition founded upon qualities, 
but the idea, superadded to their definition, that these 
qualities are characteristic of an abstraction. On this 
ground, it has been assumed that they differ in their 
logical value from the names used in terminology, but 
there does not appear to be sufficient evidence of this. 
The names of plants or animals represent In classlfi- 



110 rROFESSOR MENFREY 

cation those used in organography to denote organs or 
parts, homologous organs standing in the same logical 
relations as the individuals of a species. 

The principles of nomenclature in botany and 
zoology, since the time of Linnaeus, have proceeded 
essentially upon abstract grounds as regards species, 
the names not necessarily conveying in themselves 
any notion but that of kind. The nomenclature of 
chemistry differs greatly in this respect, since the names 
of the kinds or species generally represent their com- 
position. The names of plants or animals are analogous 
to the proper names of men, used in civilized nations to 
economize words and assist the memory. The different 
kinds have not independent names, but are designated 
as members of groups of kinds, distinguished from each 
other by an adjective term, either indicating a distinctive 
quality or not, but in any case only necessarily connoting 
a certain abstract definition of the kind. This abstract 
definition is not arbitrary, derived from a given type, 
but constructed by the collection of the most general 
characters from all those individuals which we conceive 
to agree in kind. With regard to the organic species, wc 
have certain other resorts, besides direct characters, by 
which we are enabled to judge as to the agreement in 
kind, as, for example, in the physiological phenomena 
of reproduction. The notion of a type which comes in 
here is not used in the sense of a typical individual, 
but as an abstract standard of reference.* Species arc 
combined into groups according to the principle of 

* This natural-liistoiy signification of a type seems to con-espond with the 
notion of a type or ideal image as used in tlie fine arts, formed by com- 
bining all the characteristic perfections, and omitting all the inessential or 
accidental imperfections of a kittd. 



ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. Ill 

agreement ; but these groups, called genera, have not 
the same biological isolation, at all events in plants, 
as the collections of individuals constituting a species. 
They are constituted, however, practically by the same 
method — by bringing together those species which agree 
with each other more than they do with any other 
species, in the greatest number of important character- 
istics. These groups, in biological language as in 
common life, are the first which receive substantive 
names, and the species which they include are distin- 
guished by adjectives appended ; thus, the botanical 
name rosa, like the common word rose, indicates a 
genus, including many species, which are distinguished 
by such appended terms as canina, the dog-rose, ccnti- 
folia, the hundred-leaved rose, &c. The mental types of 
genera are more abstract than those of species, and they 
become less and less definite as our groups rise in the 
scale of generality, presenting more and more clearly the 
universal character of such types, so that they are embo- 
diments of a certain definite character which we admit 
to be associated with others unknown or undefined. 

The genera are gathered into groups called orders, or 
families, founded upon similar considerations. In this 
way we bring the vast mass of existing species into a 
smaller and more manageable number of collections, 
represented by abstractions, in which are contained all 
their essential characters of resemblance or agreement. 
There, however, we see the groups composed of smaller 
groups, which have a collateral agreement or equality of 
taxonomic characters among themselves; but we find 
these groups coming into a new relation — a relation of 
gradation or serial progression. This is the case even 
with the orders as included in the classes, and still more 



112 PROFESSOR HENFREY 

when we examine the plan of the classes or grand 
divisions of the vegetable kingdom. 

Taking as a guide the same principles which lead us 
in the estimation of the value of differences and agree- 
ment in the characters of species, we find that the types 
of the orders are susceptible of co-ordination in a series 
which shall represent the degree of complexity of the 
phenomena in which they exhibit the characteristics of 
vegetable life. Vegetation or organic growth, and re- 
production, are the two principal phenomena of vegetable 
life, growth being the lowest attribute, least raised above 
inorganic accretion — reproduction, the higher, related to, 
and indeed identical in its characters with, the reproduc- 
tion of animals. The gradual specialization of vegetable 
structures, their distribution into distinct organs,, the 
gradual elimination of the reproductive organs from the 
vegetative, until they become quite organically inde- 
pendent — these give the order in which the series of 
the vegetable families m.ust stand, this co-ordination 
being not merely the only one which can be rationally 
derived from morphology and physiology, in the view of 
exhibiting the natural affininities of plants, but becom- 
ing, like all natural classifications, an instrument of 
discovery in the intermediate particulars by analogical 
reasoning.* 

The following table will illustrate these points. In it 
are laid down the principal classes into which the vege- 
table kingdom is divided, according to the laws of classi- 
fication here enforced. 

* On the method of concomitant variations. 



ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. II3 

VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 

Thallophyta: — 
Fungales. 
Lichenales. 
Algales. 

CORMOPHYTA : — 

Sporocarpia. 

AXOOAMIA :— 

Hepaticales. 

Muscales. 
Thallogamia — 

Filicales. 

Equisetales. 
Sporogamia : — 

Lycopodlales. 

Marsileales. 
Spermocarpia : — 

Gymnospermia. 
Angiospermia. 

Monocotyledones. 

Dicotyledones. 

The large groups succeeding each other in this table 
exhibit a progression of morphological and physiological 
complexity, while collateral relations of the same nature 
exist in proportionate complexity in the particular 
groups. 

The length to which I have dwelt upon this subject of 
classification may be justified by the following quotation 
from an eminent writer of the present day:* "Although 
the scientific arrangements of organic nature afford as 
yet the only complete example of rational classification, 
whether as to the formation of groups or series, these 
principles are applicable to all cases in which mankind 
are called upon to bring the various parts of any exten- 
sive subject into mental co-ordination. They are as 

• John S. Mill, Logic, 2d ed. ii, 334. 



114. PROFESSOR HENFREY 

much to the point when objects are to be classed for 
purposes of art or business as for those of science. The 
proper arrangement, for example, of a code of laws 
depends upon the same scientific conditions as the 
classifications in natural history; nor could there be a 
better preparatory discipline for that important function, 
than a study of the principles of a natural arrangement, 
not only in the abstract, but in their actual application 
to the class of phenomena for which they were first 
elaborated, and which are still the best school for learn- 
ing their use." 

It remains now to direct attention briefly to the rela- 
tions of botanical science to various applied and abstract 
sciences, which are partly or wholly dependent upon it. 

In the first place, it must be evident to every one that 
the general physiology of plants (which presupposes a 
knowledge of the physical and chemical laws influencing 
them), together with the concrete natural history of the 
species dealt with, must form the only secure basis of 
scientific agriculture ; that it has not been fully recognised 
as such hitherto, depends upon its inevitable imperfec- 
tions, which, however, will be the sooner removed, in 
proportion as agriculturists devote themselves to the 
study of physiological laws. 

Secondly, botany finds a place in the two cosmological 
sciences studying the past and present conditions of the 
globe — Geology and Geography, 

The perishable nature of vegetable structures does, 
indeed, render fossil remains of plants less valuable as 
objects for pal^ontologlcal reasonings, than the better- 
preserved hard parts of animals, especially as the latter 
afford safer grounds for estimating how much has been 
lost, how much preserved, of ancient forms of organlza- 



ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. II5 

tion. But botanical reasonings form an essential link in 
geological inductions, although it is requisite to be very- 
careful in applying the analogical method, derived from 
classification, to the history of the development of the 
organic creation. 

In geography, that is, physical geography, the concrete 
natural history of plants becomes a portion of the con- 
crete natural history of the globe ; the physiological laws 
are involved with physical laws of climate, soil, &c., in 
the explanations of possible distributions, either in an 
abstract point of view, or for the purpose of practical 
application ; while the systematic classifications, and the 
natural history of particular species, become the only 
guide by which we can attempt to trace back the exist- 
ing conditions of distribution towards their origin, and 
thus perform the share due from botany; in the historical 
connexion of physical geography with geology, of which 
it is properly only the statical part. 

In conclusion, I have one remark to make regarding 
the discourse I have just addressed to you. It will be 
observed that the subject which I was called upon to 
expound, was the relations of botanical science to the 
other branches of knowledge, and not the science of 
botany itself, the special facts and laws of which, con- 
sequently, and especially in addressing an audience 
gathered together for educational purposes, have been 
kept back beyond what was absolutely necessary to its 
proper characterization ; and I have dwelt upon the 
study as a means of mental discipline, and on its prac- 
tical application, rather than as a branch of science 
pursuing knowledge for its own sake. Let it not be 
supposed that I do not prize it for its last attribute, 
for indeed I regard this as the highest and best ; and I 



1 16 PROFESSOR HENFREY ON THE STUDY OF EOTANY. 

might express my own feelings in the well-known words 
of the wise king : " It is the glory of God to conceal a 
thing, but the glorj' of a king to search it out" 

If any ask still, to what end ? I would quote to him 
the assurance of the great restorer of science — " Only 
let mankind regain their rights over nature, assigned 
to them by the gift of God; that power obtained, its 
exercise will be governed by right reason and true 
religion," 



I 



ON THE METHOD OF STUDYING 
ZOOLOGY. 



A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE SCIENCE CLASSES 
AT THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. 



BY 
THOMAS H. HUXLEY, F.R.S., I.L.D. 



i 



ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 



Natural History is the name familiarly applied 
to the study of the properties of such natural bodies 
as minerals, plants, and animals ; the sciences which 
embody the knowledge man has acquired upon these 
subjects are commonly termed Natural Sciences, in con- 
tradistinction to other, so called " physical," sciences ; 
and those who devote themselves especially to the 
pursuit of such sciences have been, and are, commonly 
termed " Naturalists," 

Linnaeus was a naturalist in this wide sense, and his 
" Systema Naturae " was a work upon natural history, in 
the broadest acceptation of the term ; in it, that great 
methodizing spirit embodied all that was known in his 
time of the distinctive characters of minerals, animals, 
and plants. But the enormous stimulus which Linnaeus 
gave to the investigation of nature, soon rendered it 
impossible that any one man should write another 
" Systema Naturae," and extremely difficult for any one 
to become a naturalist such as Linnaeus was. 

Great as have been the advances made by all the three 
branches of science, of old included under the title of 
natural history, there«can be no doubt that zoology and 
botany have grown in an enormously greater ratio than 



120 



PROFESSOR HUXLEY 



mineralo^ ; and hence, as I suppose, the name of 
"natural history " has gradually become more and more 
definitely attached to these prominent divisions of the 
subject, and by "naturalist" people have meant more 
and more distinctly to imply a student of the structure 
and functions of living beings. 

However this may be, it is certain that the advance of 
knowledge has gradually widened the distance between 
mineralogy and its old associates, w^hile it has drawn 
zoology and botany closer together ; so that of late 
years it has been found convenient (and indeed neces- 
sary) to associate the sciences w^hich deal with vitality 
and all its phenomena under the common head of 
"biology;" and the biologists have come to repudiate 
any blood-relationship with their foster-brothers, the 
mineralogists. 

Certain broad laws have a general application 
throughout both the animal and the vegetable worlds, 
but the ground common to these kingdoms of nature is 
not of very wide extent, and the multiplicity of details 
is so great, that the student of living beings finds him- 
self obliged to devote his attention exclusively either to 
the one or the other. If he elects to study plants, under 
any aspect, we know at once what to call him ; he is a 
botanist, and his science is botany. But if the investi- 
gation of animal life be his choice, the name generally 
applied to him will var}^, according to the kind of 
animals he studies, or the particular phenomena of 
animal life to which he confines his attention. If the 
study of man is his object, he is called an anatomist, or 
a physiologist, or an ethnologist ; but if he dissects 
animals, or examines into the mode in which their func- 
tions arc performed, he is a comparative anatomist or 



ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 121 

comparative physiologist. If he turns his attention to 
fossil animals, he is a palaeontologist. If his mind is 
more particularly directed to the description, specific 
discrimination, classification, and distribution of animals, 
he is termed a zoologist. 

For the purposes of the present discourse, however, I 
shall recognise none of these titles save the last, which I 
shall employ as the equivalent of botanist, and I shall 
use the term zoology as denoting the whole doctrine of 
animal life, in contradistinction from botany, which 
signifies the whole doctrine of vegetable life. 

Employed in this sense, zoology, like botany, is divi- 
sible into three great but subordinate sciences, mor- 
phology, physiology, and distribution, each of which 
may, to a very great extent, be studied independently 
of the otl^r. 

Zoological morphology is the doctrine of animal form 
or structure. Anatomy is one of its branches, develop- 
ment is another ; while classification is the expression of 
the relations which different animals bear to one an- 
other, in respect of their anatomy and their development. 

Zoological distribution is the study of animals in 
relation to the terrestrial conditions which obtain now, 
or have obtained at any previous epoch of the earth's 
history. 

Zoological physiology, lastly, is the doctrine of the 
functions or actions of animals. It regards animal 
bodies as machines impelled by certain forces, and per- 
forming an amount of work, which can be expressed in 
terms of the ordinary forces of nature. The final object 
of physiology is to deduce the facts of morphology on 
the one hand, and those of distribution on the other, from 
the laws of the molecular forces of matter. 
7 



122 PROFESSOR HUXLEY 

Such is the scope of zoology. But if I were to con- 
tent myself with the enunciation of these dry defi- 1 
nitions, I should ill exemplify that method of teaching | 
this branch of physical science, which it is my chief | 
business to-night to recommend. Let us turn away then 
from abstract definitions. Let us take some concrete 
living thing, some animal, the commoner the better, and 
let us see how the application of common sense and 
common logic to the obvious facts it presents, inevitably 
leads us into all these branches of zoological science. 

I have before me a lobster. When I examine it, what 
appears to be the most striking character it presents .-* 
Why, I observe that this part which we call the tail of 
the lobster, is made up of six distinct hard rings and a 
seventh terminal piece. If I separate one of the middle 
rings, say the third, I find it carries upon its under sur- 
face a pair of limbs or appendages, each of which con- 
sists of a stalk and two terminal pieces. So that I can 
represent a transverse section of the ring and its appen- 
dages upon the diagram board in this way. 

If I now take the fourth ring I find it has the same 
structure, and so have the fifth and the second ; so that 
in each of these divisions of the tail I find parts which 
correspond with one another, a ring and two appen- 
dages ; and in each appendage a stalk and two end 
pieces. These corresponding parts are called, in the 
technical language of anatomy, "homologous parts." 
The ring of the third division is the "homologue" of 
the ring of the fifth, the appendage of the former is the 
homologue of the appendage of the latter. And as each 
division exhibits corresponding parts in corresponding 
places, we say that all the divisions are constructed upon 
the sanie i)lan. ]5ut now let us consider the sixth divi- 



ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 1 23 

sion. It is similar to, and yet different from, the others. 
The ring is essentially the same as in the other divi- 
F,\onf. ; but the appendages look at first as if they were 
very different ; and yet when we regard them closely, 
what do we find ? A stalk and two terminal divisions, 
exactly as in the others, but the stalk is very short and 
very thick, the terminal divisions are very broad and 
flat, and one of them is divided into two pieces. 

I may say, therefore, that the sixth segment is like the 
others in plan, but that it is modified in its details. 

The first segment is like the others, so far as its ring ii 
concerned, and though its appendages differ from any of 
those yet examined in the simplicity of their structure 
parts corresponding with the stem and one of the divi 
sions of the appendages of the other segments can b< 
readily discerned in them. 

Thus it. appears that the lobster's tail is composed of 
a series of segments which arc fundamentally similar, 
though each presents peculiar modifications of the plan 
common to all. But when I turn to the fore part of the 
body I see, at first, nothing but a great shield-like shell, 
called technically the " carapace," ending in front in a 
sharp spine, on either side of which arc the curious 
compound eyes, set upon the ends of stout moveable 
stalks. Behind these, on the under side of the body, arc 
two pairs of long feelers or antennae, followed by six 
pairs of jaws, folded against one another over the 
mouth, and five pairs of legs, the foremost of these 
being the great pinchers, or claws, of the lobster. 

It looks, at first, a little hopeless to attempt to find in 
this complex mass a series of rings, each with its pair of 
appendages, such as I have shown you in the abdomen, 
and yet it is not difficult to demonstrate their existence 



124 PROFESSOR HUXLEY 

Strip off the legs, and you will find that each pair is 
attached 'to a very definite segment of the under ^vall 
of the body ; but these segments, instead of being the 
lower parts of free rings, as in the tail, are such parts of 
rings which are all solidly united and bound together; 
and the like is true of the jaws, the feelers, and the eye- 
stalks, every pair of which is borne upon its own special 
segment. Thus the conclusion is gradually forced upon 
us, that the body of the lobster is composed of as many 
rings as there are pairs of appendages, namely, twenty 
in all, but that the six hindmost rings remain free and 
moveable, while the fourteen front rings become firmly 
soldered together, their backs forming one continuous 
shield — the carapace. 

Unity of plan, diversity in execution, is the lesson 
taught by the study of the rings of the body, and the 
same instruction is given still more emphatically by the 
appendages. If I examine the outermost jaw I find it 
consists of three distinct portions, an inner, a middle, and 
an outer, mounted upon a common stem ; and if I com- 
pare this jaw with the legs behind it, or the jaws in 
front of it, I find it quite easy to see, that, in the legs, it 
is the part of the appendage which corresponds with the 
inner division, which becomes modified into what we 
know familia'rly as the " leg," while the middle division 
disappears, and the outer division is hidden under the 
carapace. Nor is it more difhcult to discern that, in the 
appendages of the tail, the middle division appears 
again and the outer vanishes ; while, on the other hand, 
in the foremost jaw, the so-called mandible, the inner 
division only is left ; and, in the same way, the parts of 
the feelers and of the eye-stalks can be identified with 
those of the legs and jaws. 



ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 1 25 

But whither does all this tend ? To the very remark- 
able conclusion that a unity of plan, of the same kind as 
that discoverable in the tail or abdomen of the lobster, 
pervades the whole organization of its skeleton, so that 
I can return to the diagram representing any one of the 
rings of the tail, which I drew upon the board, and by 
adding a third division to each appendage, I can use it 
as a sort of scheme or plan of any ring of the body. I 
can give names to all the parts of that figure, and then 
if I take any segment of the body of the lobster, I can 
point out to you exactly, what modification the general 
plan has undergone in that particular segment ; what 
part has remained moveable, and what has become fixed 
to another; what has been excessively developed and 
metamorphosed, and what has been suppressed. 

But I imagine I hear the question, How is all this to 
be tested ? No doubt it is a pretty and ingenious way 
of looking at the structure of any animal-, but is it any- 
thing more ? Does Nature acknowledge, in any deeper 
way, this unity of plan we seem to trace ? 

The objection suggested by these questions is a very 
valid and important one, and morphology was in an 
unsound state, so long as it rested upon the mere percep- 
tion of the analogies which obtain between /ully formed 
parts. The unchecked ingenuity of speculative anato- 
mists proved itself fully competent to spin any number 
of contradictory hypotheses out of the same facts, and 
endless morphological dreams threatened to supplant 
scientific theory. 

Happily, however, there is a critenon of morpho- 
logical truth, and a sure test of all homologies. Our 
lobster has not always been what we see it; it was once 
an egg, a semifluid mass of yolk, not so big as a pin's 



126 PROFESSOR HUXLEY 

head, contained in a transparent membrane, and exhi- 
biting not the least trace of any one of those organs, 
whose multiplicity and complexity, in the adult, are so 
surprising. After a time a delicate patch of cellular 
membrane appeared upon one face of this yolk, and that 
patch was the foundation of the whole creature, the clay 
out of which it would be moulded. Gradually investing 
the yolk, it became subdivided by transverse constric-r 
tions into segments, the forerunners of the rings of the 
body. Upon the ventral surface of each of the rings 
thus sketched out, a pair of bud-like prominences made 
their appearance — the rudiments of the appendages of 
the ring. At first, all the appendages Avere alike, but, as 
they grew, most of them became distinguished with a 
stem and two terminal divisions, to which, in the middle 
part of the body, was added a third outer division ; and 
it was only at a later period, that by the modification, or 
abortion, of certn'n of these primitive constituents, the 
limbs acquired their perfect form. 

Thus the study of development proves that the doc- 
trine of unity of plan is not merely a fancy, that it is 
not merely one way of looking at the matter, but that it 
is the expression of deep-seated natural facts. The legs 
and jaws of the lobster may not merely be regarded as 
modifications of a common type, — in fact and in nature 
they are so, — the leg and the jaw of the young animal 
being, at first, indistinguishable. 

These are wonderful truths, the more so because the 
zoologist finds them to be of universal application. The 
investigation of a polype, of a snail, of a fish, of a horse, 
or of a man, would have led us, though by a less easy 
path, perhaps, to exactly the same point. Unity of plan 
everywhere lies hidden under the mask of diversity of 



ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 



127 



structure — the complex is everywhere evolved out of the 
simple. Every animal has at first the form of an egg, 
and every animal and every organic part, in reaching its 
adult state, passes through conditions common to other 
animals and other adult parts; and this leads me to 
another point. I have hitherto spoken as if the lobster 
were alone in the world, but, as I need hardly remind 
vou, there are myriads of other animal organisms. Of 
these, some, such as men, horses, birds, fishes, snails, 
slugs, oysters, corals, and sponges, are not in the least 
like the lobster. But other animals, though they may 
differ a good deal from the lobster, are yet either very 
like it, or are like something that is like it. The cray 
fish, the rock lobster, and the prawn, and the shrimp, for 
example, however different, are yet so like lobsters, that 
a child would group them as of the lobster kind, in con- 
tradistinction to snails and slugs ; and these last again 
would form a kind by themselves, in contradistinction to 
cows, horses, and sheep, the cattle kind. 

But this spontaneous grouping into " kinds " is the 
first essay of the human mind at classification, or the 
calling by a common name of those things that are 
alike, and the arranging them in such a manner as best 
to suggest the sum of their likenesses and unlikenesses 
to other things. 

Those kinds which include no other subdivisions than 
the sexes, or various breeds, are called, in technical lan- 
guage, species. The English lobster is a species, our 
cray fish is another, our prawn is another. In other 
countries, however, there are lobsters, cray fish, and 
prawns, very like ours, and yet presenting sufficient dif- 
ferences to deserve distinction. Naturalists, therefore, 
express this resemblance and this diversity by grouping 



128 PROFESSOR HUXLEY 

them as distinct species of the same "genus." Bat the 
lobster and the cray fish, though belonging to distinct 
genera, have many features in common, and hence are 
grouped together in an assemblage which is called a 
family. More distant resemblances connect the lobster 
with the prawn and the crab, which are expressed by 
putting all these into the same order. Again, more 
remote, but still very definite, resemblances unite the 
lobster with the woodlouse, the king crab, the water-flea, 
and the barnacle, and separate them from all other 
animals ; whence they collectively constitute the' larger 
group, or class, Crustacea. But the Crustacea exhibit 
many peculiar features in common with insects, spiders, 
and centipedes, so that these are grouped into the still 
larger assemblage or "province" Articulata ; and, finally, 
the relations which these have to worms and other lower 
animals, are expressed by combining the whole vast 
aggregate into the sub-kingdom oi Annulosa. 

If I had worked my way from a sponge instead of a 
lobster, I should have found it associated, by like ties, 
with a great number of other animals into the sub-king- 
dom Protozoa; if I had selected a fresh-water polype or 
a coral, the members of what naturalists term the sub- 
kingdom Ccclentcrata would have grouped themselves 
around my type; had a snail been chosen, the inhabitants 
of all univalve and bivalve, land and water shells, the 
lamp shells, the squids, and the sea-mat would have 
gradually linked themselves on to it as members of the 
same sub-kingdom of Mollusca; and finally, starting 
from man, I should have been compelled to admit first, 
the ape, the rat, the horse, the dog, into the same class ; 
and then the bird, the crocodile, the turtle, the frog, and 
the fish, into the same sub-kingdom of Vcrtcbrata. 



ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. I2q 

And if I had followed out all these various lines of 
classification fully, I should discover in the end that 
there was no animal, either recent or fossil, which did 
not at once fall into one or other of these sub-kingdoms. 
In other words, every animal is organized upon one or 
other of the five, or more, plans, whose existence renders 
our classification possible. And so definitely and pre- 
cisely marked is the structure of each animal, that, in 
the present state of our knowledge, there is not the least 
evidence to prove that a form, in the slightest degree 
transitional between any two of the groups Vertebrata, 
Anmdosa, Mollusca, and Ccelentcrata, either exists, or 
has existed, during that period of the earth's history 
which is recorded by the geologist. Nevertheless, you 
must not for a moment suppose, because no such 
transitional forms are known, that the members of 
the sub-kingdoms are disconnected from, or indepen- 
dent of, one another. On the contrary, in their earliest 
condition they are all alike, and the primordial germs 
of a man, a dog, a bird, a fish, a beetle, a snail, and a 
polype are, in no essential structural respects, dis- 
tinguishable. 

In this broad sense, it may with truth be said, that 
all living animals, and all those dead creations which 
geology reveals, are bound together by an all-pervading 
unity of organization, of the same character, though not 
equal in degree, to that which enables us to discern one 
and the same plan amidst the twenty different segments 
of a lobster's body. Truly it has been said, that to a 
clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which 
the Infinite may be seen. 

Turning from these purely morphological considera- 
tions, let us now examine into the manner in which the 



130 



PROFKSSm^ TrTTXT.KV 



attentive study of the lobster impels us into other lines 
of research. 

Lobsters are found in all the European seas ; but on 
the opposite shores of the Atlantic and in the seas of 
the southern hemisphere they do not exist. They are, 
however, represented in these regions by very closely 
allied, but distinct forms — the Homams A mericamis and 
the Homariis Capmsis: so that we may say that the 
European has one species of Homariis; the American, 
another; the African, another; and thus the remarkable 
facts of geographical distribution begin to dawn upon us. 

Again, if we examine the contents of the earth's crust, 
we shall find in the later of those deposits, which have 
served as the great burying grounds of past ages, num- 
berless lobster-like animals, but none so similar to our 
living lobster as to make zoologists sure that they be- 
longed even to the same genus. If we go still further 
back in time, we discover, in the oldest rocks of all, the 
remains of animals, constructed on the same general 
plan as the lobster, and belonging to the same great 
group of Crustacea ; but for the most part totally dif- 
ferent from the lobster, and ind-eed from any other living 
form of crustacean ; and thus we gain a notion of that 
successive change of the animal population of the globe, 
in past ages, which is the most striking fact revealed by 
geology. 

Consider, novv'', where our inquiries have led us. Wc 
studied our type morphologically, when we determined 
its anatomy and its development, and when comparing 
it, in these respects, with other animals, we made out its 
place in a system of classification. If we were to examine 
every animal in a similar manner, we should establish a 
complete body of zoological morphology. 



ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. I31 

Again, We investigated the distribution of our type in 
space and in time, and, if the Hke had been done with 
every animal, the sciences of geographical and geological 
distribution would have attained their limit. 

But you will observe one remarkable circumstance, 
that, up to this point, the question of the life of these 
organisms has not come under consideration. Morpho- 
logy and distribution might be studied almost as well, if 
animals and plants were a peculiar kind of crystals, and 
possessed none of those functions which distinguish 
living beings so remarkably. But the facts of morpho- 
logy and distribution have to be accounted for, and 
the science, whose aim it is to account for them, is 
physiology. 

Let us return to our lobster once more. If we watched 
the creature in its native element, we should see it climb- 
ing actively the submerged rocks, among which it delights 
to live, by means of its strong legs ; or swimming by 
powerful strokes of its great tail, the appendages of 
whose sixth joint are spread out into a broad fan-like 
propeller: seize it, and it will show you that its great 
claws are no mean weapons of offence ; suspend a piece 
of carrion among its haunts, and it will greedily devour 
it, tearing and crushing the flesh by means of its multi- 
tudinous jaws. 

Suppose that we had known nothing of the lobster 
but as an inert mass, an organic crystal, if I may use the 
phrase, and that we could suddenly see it exerting all 
these powers, what wonderful new ideas and new ques- 
tions would arise in our minds ! The great new question 
would be, " How does all this take place .'' " the chief new 
idea would be, the idea of adaptation to purpose, — the 
notion, that the constituents of animal bodies are not 



132 PROFESSOR HUXLEY 

mere unconnected parts, but organs working together to 
an end. Let us consider the tail of the lobster again 
from this point of view. Morphology has taught us 
that it is a series of segments composed of homologous 
parts, which undergo various modifications — beneath 
and through which a common plan of formation :s dis- 
cernible. But if I look at the same part physiologically, 
I see that it is a most beautifully constructed organ of 
locomotion, by means of which the animal can swiftly 
propel itself either backwards or forwards. 

But how is this remarkable propulsive machine made 
to perform its functions ? If I were suddenly to kill one 
of these animals and to take out all the soft parts, I 
should find the shell to be perfectly inert, to have no 
more power of moving itself than is possessed by the 
machinery of a mill, when disconnected from its steam- 
engine or water-wheel. But if I were to open it, and 
take out the viscera only, leaving the white flesh, I 
should perceive' that the lobster could bend and extend 
its tail as well as before. If I were to cut off the tail, I 
.should cease to find any spontaneous motion in it ; but 
on pinching any portion of the flesh, I should observe 
that it underwent a very curious change — each fibre be- 
coming shorter and thicker. By this act of contraction, 
as it is termed, the parts to which the ends of the fibre 
are attached are, of course, approximated ; and accord- 
ing to the relations of their points of attachment to the 
centres of motion of the dififerent rings, the bending or 
the extension of the tail results. Close observation of 
the newly opened lobster would soon show that all its 
movements are due to the same cause — the shortening 
and thickening of these fleshy fibres, which are techni- 
•cally called muscles. 



ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 1 33 

Here, then, is a capital fact. The movements of the 
lobster are due to muscular contractility. But why does 
a muscle contract at one time and not at another .'' Why 
does one whole group of mustles contract when the 
lobster wishes to extend his tail, and another group, 
when he desires to bend it .-• What is it originates, 
directs, and controls the motive power .-* 

Experiment, the great instrument for the ascertain- 
ment of truth in physical science, answers this question 
for us. In the head of the lobster there lies a small 
mass of that peculiar tissue which is known as nervous 
substance. Cords of similar matter connect this brain 
of the lobster, directly or indirectly, with the muscles. 
Now, if these communicating cords are cut, the brain 
remaining entire, the power of exerting what we call 
voluntary motion in the parts below the section is de- 
stroyed ; and on the other hand, if, the cords remaining 
entire, the brain mass be destroyed, the same voluntary 
mobility is equally lost. Whence the inevitable con- 
clusion is, that the power of originating these motions 
resides in the brain, and is propagated along the nervous 
cords. 

In the higher animals the phenomena which attend 
this transmission have been investigated, and the exer- 
tion of the peculiar energy which resides in the nei*ves 
has been found to be accompanied by a disturbance of 
the electrical state of their molecules. 

If v/e could exactly estimate the signification of this 
disturbance ; if we could obtain the value of a given 
exertion of nerve force by determining the quantity of 
electricity, or of heat, of which it is the equivalent ; if 
v/e could ascertain upon what arrangement, or other 
condition of the molecules of matter, the manifestation of 



134 PROFESSOR HUXLEY 

the nervous and muscular energies depends, (and doubt- 
less science will some day or other ascertain these 
points,) physiologists would have attained their ultimate 
goal in this direction ; tliey would have determined the 
relation of the motive force of animals to the other 
forms of force found in nature ; and if the same process 
had been successfully performed for all the operations 
which are carried on, in, and by the animal frame, 
physiology would be perfect, and the facts of morphology 
and distribution would be deducible from the laws which 
physiologists had established, combined with those deter- 
mining the condition of the surrounding universe. 

There is not a fragment of the organism of this humble 
animal, whose study would not lead us into regions of 
thought as large as those which I have briefly opened 
up to you ; but what I have been saying, I trust, has not 
only enabled you to form a conception of the scope and 
purport of zoology, but has given you an imperfect 
example of the manner in which, in my opinion, that 
science, or indeed any physical science, may be best 
taught. The great matter is, to make teaching real and 
practical, by fixing the attention of the student on par- 
ticular facts ; but at the same time it should be rendered 
broad and comprehensive, by constant reference to the 
generalizations of which all particular facts are illustra- 
tions. The lobster has served as a type of the whole 
animal kingdom, and its anatomy and physiology have 
illustrated for us some of the greatest truths of biology. 
The student who has once seen for himself the facts 
which I have described, has had their relations explained 
to him, and has clearly comprehended them, has so far 
a knowledge of zoology, which rs real and genuine, how- 
ever limited it may be, and which is worth more than all 



ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. I35 

the mere reading knowledge of the science he could ever 
acquire. His zoological information is, so far, knowledge 
and not mere hearsay. 

And if it were my business to fit you for the certificate 
in zoological science granted by this department, I 
should pursue a course precisely similar in principle 
to that Avhich I have taken to-night. I should select a 
fresh-water sponge, a fresh-water polype or a Cyancca, 
a fresh-water mussel, a lobster, a fowl, as types of the 
five primary divisions of the animal kingdom. I should 
explain their structure very fully, and show how each 
illustrated the great principles of zoology. Having gone 
very carefully and fully over this ground, I should feel 
that you had a safe foundation, and I should then take 
you in the same way, but less minutely, over similarly 
selected illustrative types of the classes ; and then I 
should direct your attention to the special forms enume- 
rated under the head of types, in this syllabus, and to 
the other facts there mentioned. 

That would, speaking generally, be my plan. But I 
have undertaken to explain to you the best mode of 
acquiring and communicating a knowledge of zoology, 
and you may therefore fairly ask me for a more detailed 
and precise account of the manner in which I should 
propose to furnish you with the information I refer to. 

My own impression is, that the best model for all 
kinds of training in physical science is that afforded by 
the method of teaching anatomy, in use in' the medical 
schools. This method consists of three elements — lec- 
tures, demonstrations, and examinations. 

The object of lectures is, in the first place, to awaken 
the attention and excite the enthusiasm of the student ; 
and this, I am sure, may be effected to a far greater 



136 PROFESSOR HUXLEY 

extent by the oral discourse and by the personal 
influence of a respected teacher, than in any other 
way. Secondly, lectures have the double use of guiding 
the student to the salient points of a subject, and at 
the same time forcing him to attend to the whole of it, 
and not merely to that part which takes his fancy. And 
lastly, lectures afford the student the opportunity of 
seeking explanations of those difficulties which will, and 
indeed ought to, arise in the course of his studies. 

But for a student to derive the utmost possible value 
from lectures, several precautions are needful. 

I have a strong impression that the better a discourse 
is, as an oration, the worse it is as a lecture. The flow 
of the discourse carries you on without proper atttention 
to its sense ; you drop a word or a phrase, you lose the 
exact meaning for a moment, and while you strive to 
recover yourself, the speaker has passed on to something 
else. 

The practice I have adopted of late years, in lecturing 
to students, is to condense the substance of the hour's 
discourse into a few dry propositions, which are read 
slowly and taken down from dictation ; the reading of 
each being 'followed by a free comnientary, expanding 
and illustrating the proposition, explaining terms, and 
removing any difficulties that may be attackable in that 
way, by diagrams made roughly, and seen to grow under 
the lecturer's hand. In this manner you, at any rate, 
insure the co-operation of the student to a certain extent. 
He cannot leave the lecture-room entirely empty if the 
taking of notes is enforced ; and a student must be 
preternaturally dull and mechanical, if he can take 
notes and hear them properly explained, and yet learn 
nothing. 



ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. I37 

What books shall I read ? is a question constantly 
put by the student to the teacher. My reply usually is, 
" None : write your notes out carefully and fully ; strive 
to understand them thoroughly ; come to me for the 
explanation of anything you cannot understand ; and 
I would rather you did not distract your mind by 
reading." A properly ' composed course of lectures 
ought to contain fully as much matter as a student 
can assimilate in the time occupied by its delivery ; 
and the teacher should always recollect that his business 
is to feed, and not to cram, the intellect. Indeed, I 
believe that a student who gains from a course of lec- 
tures the simple habit of concentrating his attention 
upon a definitely limited scries of facts, until they are 
thoroughly mastered, has made a step of immeasurable 
importance. 

But, however good lectures may be, and however 
extensive the course of reading by which they are 
followed up, they are but accessories to the great in- 
strument "of scientific teaching — demonstration. If I 
insist unweariedly, nay fanatically, upon the importance 
of physical science as an educational agent, it is because 
the study of any branch of science, if properly conducted, 
appears to me to fill up a void left by all other means 
of education. I have the greatest respect and love for 
literature ; nothing would grieve me more than to see 
literary training other than a very prominent branch of 
education : indeed, I wish that real literary discipline 
were far more attended to than it is ; but I cannot shut 
my eyes to the fact, that there is a vast difference 
between men who have had a purely literary, and those 
who have had a sound scientific, training. 

Seeking for the cause of this difference, I imagine I 



138 PROFESSOR HUXLEY 

can find it in the fact, that, in the world of letters, 
learning and knowledge are one, and books are the 
source of both ; whereas in science, as in life, learning 
and knowledge are distinct, and the study of things, 
and not of books, is the source of the latter. 

All that literature has to bestow may be obtained 
by reading and by practical exercise in writing and in 
speaking ; but I do not exaggerate when I say, that 
none of the best gifts of science are to be won by these 
means. On the contrary, the great benefit which a 
scientific education bestows, Avhether as training or as 
knowledge, is dependent upon the extent to which the 
mind of the student is brought into immediate contact 
with facts — upon the degree to which he learns the 
habit of appealing directly to Nature, and of acquiring 
through his senses concrete images of those properties 
of things, which are, and always will be, but approxi- 
matively expressed in human language. Our way of 
looking at Nature, and of speaking about her, varies 
from year to year ; but a fact once seen, a relation of 
cause and effect, once demonstratively apprehended, are 
possessions which neither change nor pass away, but, 
on the contrary, form fixed centres, about which other 
truths aggregate by natural afifinity. 

Therefore, the great business of the scientific teacher 
is, to imprint the fundamental, irrefragable facts of his 
science, not only by words upon the mind, but by 
sensible impressions upon the eye, and ear, and touch 
of the student, in so complete a manner, that every 
term used, or law enunciated, should afterwards call up 
vivid images of the particular structural, or other, facts 
which furnished the demonstration of the law, or the 
illustration of the term. 



ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 



139 



Now this important operation can only be achieved 
by constant demonstration, which may take place to a 
certain imperfect extent during a lecture, but which 
o«ght also to be carried on independently, and which 
should be addressed to each individual student, the 
teacher endeavouring, not so^much to show a thing to 
the learner, as to make him see it for himself. 

I am well aware that there are great practical diffi- 
culties in the way of effectual zoological demonstrations. 
The dissection of animals is not altogether pleasant, 
and requires much time ; nor is it easy to secure an 
adequate supply of the needful specimens. The botanist 
has here a great advantage ; his specimens are easily 
obtained, are clean and wholesome, and can be dissected 
in a private house as v/ell as anywhere else ; and hence, 
I believe, the fact, that botany is so much more readily 
and better taught than its sister science. But, be it 
difficult or be it easy, if zoological science is to be 
properly studied, demonstration, and, consequently, 
dissection, must be had. Without it, no man ca*n have 
a really sound knowledge of animal organization. 

A good deal may be done, however, without actual 
dissection on the student's part, by demonstration upon 
specimens and preparations; and in all probability it 
would not be very difficult, were the demand sufficient, 
to organize collections of such objects, sufficient for all 
the purposes of elementary teaching, at a comparatively 
cheap rate. Even without these, much might be effected, 
if the zoological collections, which are open to the 
public, were arranged according to what has been termed 
the *' typical principle ; " that is to say, if the specimens 
exposed to public view were so selected, that the public 
could learn something from them, instead of being, as 



HO PROFESSOR HUXLEY 

at present, merely confused by their multiplicity. For 
example, the grand ornithological gallery at the British 
Museum contains between two and three thousand 
species of birds, and sometimes five or six specimens 
of a species. They are very pretty to look at, and some 
of the cases are, indeed, splendid ; but I will undertake 
to say, that no man but a professed ornithologist has 
ever gathered much information from the collection. 
Certainly, no one of the tens of thousands of the general 
public who have walked through that gallery ever knew 
more about the essential peculiarities of birds when he 
left the gallery, than when he entered it. But if, some- 
where in that vast hall, there were a few preparations, 
exemplifying the leading structural peculiarities and the 
mode of development of a common fowl ; if the types 
of the genera, the leading modifications in the skeleton, 
in the plumage at various ages, in the mode of nidifica- 
tion, and the like, among birds, were displayed ; and if 
the other specimens were put away in a place where the 
men of science, to whom they are alone useful", could 
have free access to them, I can conceive that this col- 
lection might become a great instrument of scientific 
education. 

The last implement of the teacher to which I have 
adverted is examination — a means of education now so 
thoroughly understood that I need hardly enlarge upon 
it. I hold that both written and oral examinations are 
indispensable, and, by requiring the description of speci- 
mens, they may be made to supplement demonstration. 

Such is the fullest reply the time at my disposal will 
allow me to give to the question — how may a knowledge 
of zoology be best acquired and communicated ? 

But there is a previous question which may be moved, 



ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 14I 

and which, in fact, I know many are inclined to move. 
It is the question, why should training masters be 
encouraged to acquire a knowledge of this, or any other 
branch of physical science .-' What is the use, it is said, 
of attempting to make physical science a branch of 
primary education ? Is it not probable that teachers, 
in pursuing such studies, will be led astray from the 
acquirement of more important but less attractive know- 
ledge ? And, even if they can learn something of science 
without prejudice to their usefulness, what is the good 
of their attempting to instil that knowledge into boys 
whose real business is the acquisition of reading, writing, 
and arithmetic ? 

These questions are, and will be, very commonly 
asked, for they arise from that profound ignorance of 
the value and true position of physical science, which 
infests the minds of the most highly educated and 
intelligent classes of the community. But if I did not 
feel well assured that they are capable of being easily 
and satisfactorily answered ; that they have been an- 
swered over and over again ; and that the time will 
come when men of liberal education will blush to raise 
such questions, — I should be ashamed of my position 
here to-night. Without doubt, it is your great and very 
important function to carry out elementary education ; 
without question, anything that should interfere with 
the faithful fulfilment of that duty on your part would 
be a great evil ; and if I thought that your acquirement 
of the elements of physical science, and your communi- 
cation of those elements to your pupils, involved any 
sort of interference with your proper duties, I should 
be the first person to protest against your being en- 
couraged to do anything of the kind. 



142 PROFESSOR HUXLEY 

But is it true that the acquisition of such a know- 
ledge of science as is proposed, and the communica- 
tion of that knowledge, are calculated to weaken your 
usefulness ? Or may I not rather ask, is it possible for 
you to discharge your functions properly without these 
aids ? 

What is the purpose of primary intellectual educa- 
tion ? I apprehend that its first object is to train the 
young in the use of those tools wherewith men extract 
knowledge from the ever-shifting succession of pheno- 
mena which pass before their eyes ; and that its second 
object is to inform them of the fundamental laws which 
have been found by experience to govern the course 
of things, so that they may not be turned out into the 
world naked, defenceless, and a prey to the events they 
might control. 

A boy is taught to read his own and other languages, 
in order that he may have access to infinitely wider 
stores of knowledge than could ever be opened to him 
by oral intercourse with his fellow men ; he learns to 
write, that his means of communication with the rest of 
mankind may be indefinitely enlarged, and that he may 
record and store up the knowledge he acquires. He 
is taught elementary mathematics, that he may under- 
• stand all those relations of number and form, upon 
which the transactions of men, associated in complicated 
societies, are built, and that he may have some practice 
in deductive reasoning. 

All these operations of reading, writing, and ciphering, 
are intellectual tools, whose use should, before all things, 
be learned, and learned thoroughly ; so that the youth 
may be enabled to make his life that which it ought 
to be, a continual progress in learning and in wisdom. 






ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. I43 

But, in addition, primary education endeavours to fit 
a boy out with a certain equipment of positive know- 
ledge. He is taught the great laws of morality; the 
religion of his sect ; so much history and geography as 
will tell him where the great countries of the world are, 
what they are, and how they have become what they are. 
Without doubt all these are most fitting and ex- 
cellent things to teach a boy ; I should be very sorry 
to omit any of them from any scheme of primary intel- 
lectual education. The system is excellent, so far as 
it goes. 

But if I regard it closely, a curious reflection arises. 
I Suppose that, fifteen hundred years ago, the child of 
any well-to-do Roman citizen was taught just these 
same things ; reading and writing in his own, and, per- 
haps, the Greek tongue ; the elements of mathematics ; 
and the religion, morality, history, and geography cur- 
rent in his time. Furthermore, I do not think I err in 
affirming, that, if such a Christian Roman boy, who had 
fiiiished his education, could be transplanted into one 
of our public schools, and pass through its course of 
instruction, he would not meet with a single unfamiliar 
line of thought ; amidst all the new facts he would 
have to learn, not one would suggest a different mode 
of regarding the universe from that current in his own 
time. 

And yet surely there is some great difference between 
tlie civilization of the fourth century and that of the 
nineteenth, and still more between the intellectual habits 
and tone of thought of that day and of this ? 

And what has made this difference .-• I answer fear- 
lessly, — The prodigious development of physical science 
within the last two centuries. 



144 PROFESSOR HUXLEY 

Modern civilization rests upon physical science ; take 
away her gifts to our own country, and our position 
among the leading nations of the world is gone to- 
morrow; for it is physical science only, that makes 
intelligence and moral energy stronger than brute 
force. 

The whole of modern thought is steeped in science ; it 
has made its way into the works of our best poets, and 
even the mere man of letters, who affects to ignore and 
despise science, is unconsciously impregnated with her 
spirit, and indebted for his best products to her methods. 
I believe that the greatest intellectual revolution man- 
kind has yet seen is now slowly taking place by her 
agency. She is teaching the world that the ultimate 
court of appeal is observation and experiment, and not . 
authority ; she is teaching it to estimate the value of 
evidence ; she is creating a firm and living faith in the 
existence of immutable moral and physical laws, perfect 
obedience to which is the highest possible aim of an 
intelligent being. 

But of all this your old stereotyped system of edu- 
cation takes no note. Physical science, its methods, its 
problems, and its difficulties, will meet the poorest boy 
at every turn, and yet we educate him in such a manner 
that he shall enter the world as ignorant of the existence 
of the methods and facts of science as the day he was 
born. The modern world is full of artillery; and we 
turn out our children to do battle in it, equipped with 
the shield and sword of an ancient gladiator. 

Posterity will cry shame on us if we do not remedy 
this deplorable state of things. Nay, if we live twenty 
years longer, our own consciences will cry shame on us. 

It is my firm conviction that the only way to remedy 



ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 145 

It is, to make the elements of physical science an integral 
part of primary education. I have endeavoured to show 
you how that may be done for that branch of science 
which it is my business to pursue ; and I can but add, 
that I should look upon the day when every school- 
master throughout this land was a centre of genuine, 
however rudimentary, scientific knowledge, as an epoch 
in the history of the country. 

But let me entreat you to remember my last words. 
Addressing myself to you, as teachers, I would say, mere 
book learning in physical science is a sham and a de- 
lusion — what you teach, unless you wish to be impostors, 
that you must first know ; and real knowledge in science 
means personal acquaintance with the facts, be they few 
or many. 

Avtc. — It has been suggested to me that these words may be taken to 
imply a discouragement on my part of any sort of scientific instmction 
which does not give an acquaintance with the facts at first hand. But this 
is not my meaning. The ideal of scientific teaclnng is, no doubt, a system 
by which the scholar sees every fact for himself, and the teacher supplies 
only the explanations. Circumstances, however, do not often allow bf the 
attamment of that ideal, and we must put up with the next best system — 
one in which the scholar takes a good deal on trust firom a teacher, who, 
knowing the facts by his o\vn knowledge, can describe them with so much 
vividness as to enable his audience to form competent ideas concerning 
them. The system which I repudiate is that which allows teachers who 
have not come into direct contact with the leading facts of a science to pass 
their second-hand information on. The scientific virus, like vaccine lymph, 
if passed through too long a succession of organisms, will lose all its effect 
in protecting the young agaiast the intellectual epidemics to which they are 
expcscd. 

8 



ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY 
OF PHYSIOLOGY. 



A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION 
OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



BY 

JAMES PAGET, M.D., F.R.S. 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 



It is my office to submit to you the miportance of the 
study of Physiology, as a branch of education for all 
classes ; to state the grounds on which it seems desira- 
ble that every one should learn somewhat of the struc- 
ture of the human body, and of the processes that are 
carried on within it, and the laws according to which 
they are governed. 

The advantages to be expected from the general 
teaching of physiology may be grouped in two classes : 
the first, including such as would tend to the promotion 
of the science ; the second, such as would belong to the 
students. 

By a wider diffusion of the knowledge of physiology 
its progress would be accelerated, as that of any other 
science would, by the increased number of the compe- 
tent observers of its facts. 

But a larger advantage, and one which, I think, phy- 
siology needs more than any other science does, would 
arise in this, — that the communication would be easier, 
which is now so difficult, between those who are en- 
gaged in it, and those who specially devote themselves 
to other sciences that might assist it. Almost every 
process in the living body involves the exercise of 
mechanical and chemical — perhaps, also, of electrical — 



ISO DR. PAGET 

forces, whose effects are mingled with those of the more 
proper vital force ; and although this special force may 
modify, and in some sort veil, the effects of the others, 
yet must their influence be reckoned and allowed for 
in nearly every case we have to study. Therefore, the 
complete solution of any new physiological problem 
must require such a master of all these sciences of dead 
and living matter as cannot now, I believe, be found, or 
else it must have the co-operation of many w^orkers, each 
skilled in some single science, and able to communicate 
with all the rest. Such co-operation is, through the 
present narrowness of teaching, almost impossible. The 
mere chemist, or mechanical, or electrical philosopher, 
and the mere physiologist (one, I mean, who studies 
it, chiefly, by anatomy or by direct experiment), can 
scarcely so much as understand each other's language : 
they work apart at the same subject; and. sometimes 
even confuse each other, by showing the same facts in 
different lights, and explained in different and mutually 
unintelligible terms. I know w^ell that it requires nearly 
all the power of a strong mind so to master any of 
the physical sciences, as to be able to investigate its 
applications in the living body j and that, therefore, few 
could hope to be at once excellent in physiology, and in 
any science of dead matter ; but the co-operation that 
I speak of Avould not need more than that the skilled 
workman in each science should understand the lan- 
guage, and the chief principles, and modes of working, 
of the rest. I am sure that it is, in great measure, 
through the want of help, such as it might hence derive, 
that the onward steps of physiology are so slow, so 
retarded by backslidings, and by the consciousness of 
insecurity. 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. I51 

And in yet another way, I believe that the general 
teaching of physiology would insure its more rapid pro- 
gress — namely, by finding out those who are especially 
fit for its study. 

If we mark the peculiar fitness of certain men for 
special callings, who are even below an average ability 
in the common business of life, one might imagine some 
natural design of mutual adaptation between things to 
be done and men to do them ; and certainly, it were to 
be wished that a wider scheme of education should leave 
it less to chance whether a man will fall, or fail to fall, 
in the way of that special work for which he seems 
designed. Really, it has seemed like a chance that has 
led nearly every one of our best physiologists to his 
appropriate work ; like a chance, the loss of which 
might have consigned him to a life of failures, or of 
mediocrity, in some occupation for which he had neither 
capacity nor love. 

Such are some of the chief benefits that might result 
to physiology if it were more generally studied. I 
might tell of more ; but I will not do so, nor enlarge on 
these ; for, it might be argued, that it would be unjust 
to tax every one with intellectual labour for the ad- 
vancement of one science, even though that science be 
the foundation of the healing art, in whose improve- 
ment every one is interested. I will rather try to show 
that, through such labour in the study of physiology, 
every one would gain for himself some more direct 
advantage. 

I believe that even a moderate acquaintance with the 
principles of physiology, acquired in early life, would 
benefit a man, with regard to both his body and his mind ; 
and that it would do this by guiding him in the main- 



152 • PR. PAGET 

tcnancc and improvement of health, by teaching him 
the true economy of his powers, whether mental or cor- 
poreal, by providing worthy materials for thought, and 
by cultivating peculiar modes, and suggesting peculiar 
ends, of thinking. 

But before I attempt to illustrate these things, let me 
meet an objection which is likely to be made against 
any proposal that physiology should be a subject of 
general education, — namely, that it cannot be generally 
taught, because (it is supposed) its objects are difficult 
to show, and it requires dissections and painful experi- 
ments for its illustration. 

To such objections, the answer is easy : that the rudi- 
ments of physiology are taught already, largely and 
efficiently, in several schools of both England and 
Scotland. For such instruction, no general practice 
of dissection or of experiments is at all necessary. For 
most of the illustrations, drawings would suffice ; espe- 
cially such as those which have been constructed with 
admirable art, and published for the use of schools, 
under the direction of Mr. Marshall, of University Col- 
lege, for the Board of Trade Department of Science. 
Other things could be well taught with models.* The 
organs of animals might, in some instances, be used ; 
and dried specimens. Only let there be a demand for 
the materials of such teaching, and I will venture to 
promise, that modern art, such as these examples dis- 
play, will soon supply them at no great cost, and without 
offence to the most refined feelings. 

But wjiile I speak of what modern art would do, I 
am bound to add that the teaching of physiology, not by 

* Specimens were shown of models of the development of the chick, 

\ ciy accurately executed in M'ax, fiom nnture, by Mr. Tuson. 



ON THE STUt>Y OF PHYSIOLOGY. 1 53 

fepresentations, but by the very objects of its study, 
was long ago sanctioned by the highest and most 
venerated authority in the land. For, in the Museum 
of the College of Surgeons, there are now several 
beautiful specimens of the chief organs of the human 
body, prepared by John Hunter, which formed part 
of a collection, made at Kew, by his Majesty King 
George III., for the instruction of the princes, his 
sons. 

But if it be admitted that physiology can be gene- 
rally taught, yet some may say that, so far as the 
improvement of health and the economy of power are 
concerned, such teaching is unnecessary; for that, to 
these ends, a man need only follow the guidance of 
nature and of instinct. And, indeed, at first thought, it 
may seem very strange that we should Avant instruction 
for keeping ourselves in health; strange that man 
should be left with no natural true guidance to so great 
a good : that man alone, for whom the earth seenis 
made, should need mental labour to preserve or recover 
bodily health. Yet so it is : for none of our untaught 
faculties, neither our senses nor our instincts, are suf- 
ficient guides to good or guards from evil, in even the 
ordinary conditions of civilized life. 

The acuteness of our senses is ilot at all propor- 
tionate to the vital importance of the things that we 
observe with them. They are unable to discern the 
properties, or even the presence, of some of the most 
deadly agents. For example, we have a far keener 
sense of the temperature of the atmosphere than of its 
composition, or fitness for breathing : yet the ordinary 
changes in its temperature concern little more than our 
comfort ; those in its composition may affect our life. 



154 r>R. PAGET 

And thus it is that, seeking only the comfort of warmth^ 
which their senses can discern, men will breathe atmo- 
spheres laden with noxious gases, which they can scarcely 
detect till they have accumulated to the peril of their 
lives. 

So with food : we have a keener sense of hunger and 
thirst than of the sufficiency or fitness of our foods. 
We can at once appreciate their flavour, but not their 
nutritive value ; and those we most affect are not always 
the most appropriate to our state. 

Our instincts avail us scarcely more. After childhood, 
in civilized life, the instincts are almost in abeyance, and 
the intellect and instruction have a share in the most 
ordinary acts of life. The sensations of thirst and 
hunger impel us instinctively to seek their satisfaction, 
and by instinct we know how to do so ; but in doing it, 
we drink in adaptation to instruments of intellectual in- 
vention ; and we eat things intellectually cooked, with 
apparatus of intellectual art : yes, intellectual, for the 
meanest piece of cookery requires that control and 
management of fire, which no mind lower than the 
human intellect has ever reached, and the possession 
of which might alone suffice to prove man's primacy 
among all the creatures of the earth. 

But I need not multiply instances (I will not say of 
the inutility, but) of the insufficiency of our untaught 
powers for our guidance, in the commonest things of 
civilized life, relating to our health. Every one has 
suffered from -following what has seemed some natural 
guidance, and has learned that we only gradually attain 
some knowledge of these things by experience or educa- 
tion; i.e. by the exercise of the understanding as well 
as of the senses. 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 1 55 

If it be asked whether a state of ignorance regarding 
his own health be natural to man, I must answer that I 
suppose Providence has taken ample care for his good, 
in all those things which are of natural ordinance and 
independent of his will ; but that, for those conditions 
which he generates or incurs by his own power and free- 
will, he is left by the same power to provide. I suppose 
that men may, generally, be, like other creatures, aware, 
by sense or instinct, of those things which are for their 
good, when the simplest conditions of their existence 
are undisturbed. But these are not the conditions in 
which we live. Men have disturbed, in successive gene- 
rations, almost every simple and original condition of 
their existence. In every generation, they have been 
striving, with intellectual labour, to add to the comforts 
and luxuries of life, to their control of the forces, and 
their independence of the ordinary course, of nature. 
And many of their successes in this strife, being achieved 
by the disturbance of some natural and fit condition of 
mere subsistence, have almost necessarily incurred some 
consequent evils, which have marred, though they may 
not have neutralized, the good, and have gradually ac- 
cumulated to our damage. 

If, indeed, in all the improvements of our means of 
life, only half the trouble had been taken to prevent or 
remedy the future evil, that was taken to attain the 
present good, our state might have been far different. 
If, for examples, men had been as anxious to invent the 
means of destroying coal-smoke, as to gain the myriad 
benefits of coal-fires ; if they had thought as much and 
as soon of constructing drains below the ground, as of 
building above it ; as much even of clearing out the 
refuse of our gas-lights, as of tempering and diffusing 



156 DR. PAGEt 

their brilliancy for comfortable use ; — then we might 
have gained unalloyed benefits from every such disturb- 
ance of the natural conditions of life : the vast catalogue 
of diseases appertaining to our social state might have 
been unwritten ; and that which one age hailed as a 
national blessing might not have entailed upon the next 
a national calamity. But this has not been done ; and 
thus, from age to age, the evil residues of good things 
have accumulated; the good still, happily, prepon- 
derating, but the evils such as every man, and every 
society of men, have now to guard against, and such as 
can be averted or counteracted with no other human 
power than that of the intellect instructed in the science 
of health. 

Perhaps, now, the only question is, whether this in- 
struction need be given to all, or whether it had not 
better be still left, as it is by present custom, to a few, to 
exercise it in a special profession. I cannot doubt that 
here, as in other cases, for all ordinary care, for all 
habitual management, each man should be fit to be his 
own guardian ; while for emergencies, and the more 
unusual events, he should accept and be able to choose 
some more instructed guidance. It is not necessary, or 
likely, that every one who has learnt somewhat of the 
structure of his own body, and of the processes carried 
on in it, should seek to be his own doctor ; not more so 
than that every one who has learnt the construction and 
principle of a steam-engine, should be restless unless 
he be his own engineer. We need not fear a misuse, 
through excessive use, of such physiology as can be 
generally taught Certainly, if I may speak as one of 
the medical profession, we see greater injury sustained 
through ignorance, than is likely to accrue to imperfect 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 1 57 

knowledge, whether it be the most timid or the most 
rash. 

And here, when I speak of ignorance, I am obliged to 
say that I do not mean only the state of those who are 
wholly uneducated, but include the statd of nearly all 
who have not received some special teaching. For, 
really, in regard to all that concerns our life and health, 
it seems as if no amount of general education, no clear- 
ness of apprehension for science or for the general 
business of life, were sufficient for security against the 
grossest errors. I will not speak of the follies (as I 
believe them to be) that are now regarded as truths, and 
even useful truths, by generally well-instructed, shrewd, 
and accomplished persons. I will only say that, at all 
times, such persons have been as ready as the most un- 
educated to believe and submit themselves to practices, 
which the physiology even of their own times could 
prove to be gross and mischievous fallacies. In every 
age, it has been true that " the desire of health, like the 
desire of wealth, brings all intellects to the same level ; " 
that is, all that have not some special wisdom in the art 
of health or of wealth. 

If now it may be received that physiology should be 
generally studied for the sake of health, it maybe asked 
what parts of it should be chiefly taught, and in what 
method ? I might leave this to those who are occupied 
with general education, and with younger students than 
I have had to teach. But considering that the large 
majority of those to whom it would be taught are to 
be engaged, in after life, in pursuits alien from science, 
and that we therefore could not hope to do much more 
than leave general impressions such as might abide for 
general guidance, I feel nearly sure that the mere facts 



158 DR. PAGET 

of physiology, and much more those of anatomy, should 
be taught in subordination to their general principles. 

If I try to illustrate this by an example, I fear lest 
to some I seem almost unintelligible ; for I have never 
before this time lectured to others than students or 
members of my own profession, to whom I could use 
technical terms, and whom I could suppose to be, in 
some measure, already acquainted with my subject. 

«But, for an example, — in relation to the economy of 
power, suppose of muscular power, and thereby in regard 
to the maintenance of health, it would have to be 
taught, that, in the living body, the apparent stability 
and persistence of its structures is due, not to their being 
literally indestructible, but to the constant operation of 
a process in them, by which the materials that decay, 
or are outworn in the exercise of their offices, are con- 
stantly removed, and replaced by new ones like them- 
selves. We know that in all the actions of the body, 
there is waste and impairment of the active parts. But 
though, day after day, we exert, even in the common 
acts of life, in walking, feeding, breathing, thinking, 
talking, great amounts of force, and though, with the 
use of force, there is always a proportionate consump- 
tion of the material of our bodies, yet, year after year 
(at least for many years), w^e appear to be and feel the 
same : because the consumption, the wear and tear, of 
material, that occur in the action of our several parts, is 
constantly repaired in the intervals of rest. 

Then, following out this principle, it might be shown, 
that an economy of vital power is commonly maintained 
in the body by the just regulation of alternate periods 
of action and repose ; and this might be taken as a 
i)rinciplc for useful illustration. 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY, 



159 



The climax of the exercise of muscular power seems 
to be attained in the heart. Perhaps there is nothing, of 
equal weight, that exerts in the same time so large an 
amount of force as a heart does. In every second, or 
oftener, discharging blood from its cavities with a force 
equal to the lifting of a weight of from ten to fifteen 
pounds, it goes on hour after hour, and year after year, 
untired and almost unchanged. Now, by the similarity* 
between the structure and mode of contraction of the . 
muscular fibres of the heart, and those of the muscles 
over which we have control, we may be sure that its 
fibres are subject to the same impairment in action as 
theirs are known to be ; and that they must need the 
same repair in rest, as the voluntary muscles obtain in 
sleep. But the heart seems never to sleep ; and we ex- 
plain the secret of its apparently unceasing exercise of 
power, by referring to its exact rhythm of alternating 
contractions and dilatations ; by the fact, that every 
contraction by which it forces blood into the vessels, i.e. 
every act which we can feel as a beat or throb, is suc- 
ceeded by an interval of rest, or inaction, of the same 
length ; and by the probability, that in each period of 
inaction (brief as it is), the changes that occurred during 
the contraction are repaired. 

It is the same with the muscles for breathing, in their 
ordinary and involuntary exercise. The alternation of 
their action and repose is constant ; and they too, thbugh 
exerting forces that are truly enormous, neither waste 
nor weary themselves ; because (we may hold) in every 
period of inaction they repair the changes wrought in 
them by their action. 

Now the principle which is thus illustrated may pro- 
bably be applied to nearly all muscular exertion. 



100 DR. PAGET 

Whatever work is to be done, the largest amount of 
force may be utilized with the least injury, when rest 
and action are made to be alternate. And this is to be 
observed, not only in that long rest which our voluntary 
muscles have in sleep, but, equally, in more active life ; 
wherein more force is always obtained by the alternate 
action of certain groups of muscles, than by the sus- 
tained action of any single group. Thus, I think, it cari 
be proved that there are no voluntary actions in which 
the human body can exercise larger amounts of force 
than in ordinary progression, as in walking or in run- 
ning. And it is because of the alternation of the similar 
acts done by the two halves of the body, and especially 
by the two lower extremities. For if you watch a man 
walking, you will see that each of his limbs is doing 
exactly the opposite to what the other is doing, and to 
what itself has just finished doing; and the correspond- 
ing muscles are never in the same action upon both 
sides at once : and so if one step have been made, say, 
chiefly, with the muscular effort of the right limb, the 
next will be made with a similar effort of the left, while 
those of the right will have an interval of comparative 
inaction. 

In some measure, therefore, the principle of alternate 
action and repose, typified in the case of the heart, is 
applied here. But it is not so completely observed ; for 
we tire in walking, even while our hearts may be grow- 
ing more active. This, however, is not only because of 
the motion, but because many muscles must be in 
almost constant exercise for the maintenance of the 
erect posture, and because, probably, in these voluntary 
exercises the rest of a muscle is never quite perfect, even 
in its rclaxincf state. 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. l6l 

This same principle, of the economy of force in the 
alternation of action and repose, is doubtless true of the 
nervous as of the muscular system ; and on it we ex- 
plain the need of repose, prolonged and deep, in direct 
proportion to the length and intensity of mental exer- 
cise. On the same principle, we explain the refresh- 
ment of the mind by change of occupation or of the 
train of thought : so that, while one part of the brain is 
occupied, another may be at rest after its work is done. 
And many like things may be thus explained, which it 
would be well for all to know, but chiefly for those who 
have to teach, and who need to regulate their pupils' 
mental exercises with the best economy they can. 

There is another class of organs in which the alter 
nations of action and rest, of waste and repair, appear 
essential to the full exercise and economy of power. 
The stomach is one of these ; and a knowledge of the 
method of its office of digestion might prevent some- 
what of its almost universal misuse. 

Its chief office in digestion is to produce a peculiar 
fluid which, mingling with the food, may, by a process 
similar to fermentation, reduce it to solution or to a state 
of extremely minute division. This fluid, the gastric or 
digestive fluid, does not merely ooze from the blood; 
but is so formed in minute cells, that, for each minutest 
microscopic drop of it, a cell, of complex structure, must 
be developed, grow, and burst or be dissolved. 

A diagram would very well show how the lining 
membrane of the stomach is formed, almost entirely, of 
minute tubes, set vertically in its thickness, like little 
flasks or test-tubes, close packed and upright. The 
outer walls of these are webbed over with net-works of 
most delicate blood-vessels, carrying streams of blood, 



1 62 DR. PAGET 

Within, the same tubes contain cells, and those among 
them which chiefly secrete the digestive fluid are nearly 
filled with cells, which have taken materials from the 
blood, and from those materials have formed themselves 
and their contents. In what way they have done this, 
we cannot tell : but we can tell that the process is one 
of complicate though speedy development and growth ; 
even such a process as that by which, more slowly, the 
body grows, or any of its parts, — the hair or the nails, or 
any other that we can best watch. The act of secretion 
or production of this fluid is, literally, the growth and 
dissolution of the minute cells which, though they be 
very short-lived, yet must need a certain time for their 
complete elaboration. 

If this be so, it must follow, that we cannot, with 
impunity, interfere with that which seems a natural 
rule, of allowing certain intervals between the several 
times of feeding. Every act of digestion involves the 
consumption of some of these cells : on every contact of 
food, some must quickly perfect themselves, and yield 
up their contents ; and without doubt, the design of that 
periodical taking of food, which is natural to our race, is 
that, in the intervals, there may be time for the produc- 
tion of the cells that are to be consumed in the next 
succeeding acts of digestion. We can, indeed, state no 
constant rule as to the time required for such construc- 
tions : it probably varies according to age, and the kind 
of food, and the general activity or indolence of life, 
and, above all, according to habit ; but it may be cer- ' 
tainly held, that when the times are set,, they cannot, 
with impunity, be often interfered with ; and, as cer- 
tainly, that continual or irregular feeding is wholly con- 
trary to the economy of the human stomach. And yet 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 1 63 

such constant feeding is a frequent custom — not infre- 
quent among the adult rich, but most frequent among 
the infants of the poor, for whom food is the solace of 
every grief. 

I would thus try to teach general principles of physi- 
ology ; and with such principles there might easily be 
combined some useful rules for prudence in the ordinary 
management of personal or social health, and in the 
habitual exercise of power. 

I will not venture to say that it is only by teaching 
physiology that prudence can be taught ; for even in the 
cases I have cited, physiology teaches no other rule than 
Nature and experience had already indicated. Still, even 
in regard to those rules, when it shows their reason and 
their meaning, it gives them strength, and it enlists the 
power of the understanding against the overbearing of 
inclination and bad habit. And so, though it might be 
impossible to teach more than a small part of the whole 
body of physiology, yet one who had learned even this 
part would have a better apprehension of the rest than 
one untaught could have. One who had learned the 
general mode of study, and the labour which is spent in 
ascertaining physiological truths, and the great proba- 
bility that what is generally accepted is at least nearly 
true, would, more than an untaught man, act on the 
advice of those who are instructed. Thus acting, he 
would, as a citizen, be no hinderer of improvements, no 
^ block of utter ignorance in the way of amending the 
sanitary condition of his fellows : with belief, if not with 
knowledge, he would give his help to good. And for 
his own guidance, such an one, though only partially 
instructed, would be a far better judge than most men 
are of the probable value of professed discoveries in 



164 DR. PAGET 

medicine : he would be doubtful of all unreserved asser- 
tions ; wisely incredulous of all results supposed to flow 
from apparently incompetent sources. Even the desire 
of health would bear frequent disappointment, before 
it would induce him to commit himself to the daring 
promises of ignorance. 

I have said that we niight anticipate advantages to 
the mind, as well as to the bodily health, from making 
• physiology a branch of general education. And some 
of these advantages must not be widely separated from 
those of which I have been speaking ; for they are, in 
truth, closely correspondent, derived from the same 
source and by the same method. The health of the 
mind, so far as it is within our own control, is subject to 
the same laws as is the health of the body. For the 
brain, the organ of the mind, grows and is maintained 
according to the same method of nutrition as every 
other part of the body: it is supplied by the same 
blood ; and through the blood, like every other part, 
may be affected for good or ill by the various physical 
influences to which it is exposed. But I will not dwell 
on this, more than to assert, as safely deducible from 
physiology, that no scheme of instruction, or of legis- 
lation, can avail for the improvement of the human 
mind, which does not provide with equal care for the 
. well-being of the human body. Deprive men of fresh 
air, and pure water, of the light of heaven, and of suf- 
ficient food and rest, and as surely as their bodies will 
become dwarfish, and pallid, and diseased, so surely 
will their minds degenerate in intellectual and moral 
power. 

But let me suppose that these needs of the body may 
be happily within men's reach ; and then I may speak 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 1 65 

of the advantages that would accrue, from the general 
study of physiology, in the mental culture it would 
provide. 

I again remind myself that the cases to be kept in 
view are not only those of men who are to be chiefly 
occupied with science, but those of persons who arc to 
pursue the various common businesses of life ; and upon 
whose minds we cannot expect that those studies of 
their school-time, which would be widely different from 
the occupations of their later life, will do more than 
leave general impressions, and impart an habitual method 
and tone of thought. To such persons, I believe that 
the study of physiology would be useful, first, on the 
general ground, that they who can, with most force, 
apply themselves to any business in life (be it what it 
may), are those whose minds are disciplined and informed 
in all their parts, so as to be not only full and strong, 
but pliant, liberal, and adaptive. 

Now, there are some characters in physiology by 
means of which its study might affect the mind, or 
certain parts of it, differently from any portions of even 
that enlarged education which it is the object of this 
whole course of lectures to recommend. 

One of these is, that it is occupied with things of 
admitted incompleteness and uncertainty. In other, 
and especially in the physical, sciences, I think it is 
only the master, or the advanced student, who is im- 
pressed with their uncertainty. In them, speaking gene- 
rally, that which is taught admits of clear proof; and 
imperfection is not spoken of, except, as it were, at the 
distant boundaries of a vast body of truth. But, in 
physiology, the teacher would need everywhere to mark 
the imperfections of his knowledge; in the very rudi- 



1 66 DR. PAGET 

ments, he must speak of things as only, In various 
degrees, probable. 

Some of my predecessors in this course have shown 
how much the value of the physical sciences lies in the 
possibility of proving what is held in them, and in the 
precision of the mental exercises which they thus demand 
and cultivate ; and no one can be more conscious than I 
am that, on this account, they are indispensable elements 
of sound education. But I believe, also, that it would 
be right to mingle with this study that of a much more 
incomplete and uncertain science. I think it would be 
good, at least for some minds, to know In early life how 
much has yet to be done in science; so that some, through 
ambition of discovery, some through love of enterprise, 
some through mere curiosity, might be excited to work 
among the stores of unexplored knowledge that would 
be pointed out to them. It is strange how early, and 
how strong in early life, these ambitions of discovery 
and invention arise ; and I suppose that, In all later life, 
there are no enjoyments more keen, or more invigorat- 
ing to the mind, than those felt in boyhood, when such 
an ambition is gratified ; — whether by the finding of 
some plant unknown before in the home-district, or by 
the invention of some new appliance to a toy, imitating 
what men deal with, or, — it matters not by how trivial 
a thing. I would not venture to say how large a part 
such ambition should be allowed to have among the 
motives to study, but I think it should not be quite 
suppressed, or starved, as it is by teaching only such 
things as are already proved, or decided by authority. 

And, perhaps, yet another advantage would flow from 
the teaching of physiology, honestly and expressly, as 
a very incomplete and uncertain science. It is a great 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 1 67 

hindrance to the progress of truth, that some men will 
hold, with equal tenacity, things that are, and things 
that are not, proved ; and even things that, from their 
very nature, do not admit of proof. They seem to think 
(and ordinary education might be pleaded as justifying 
the thought) that a plain "yes" or "no" can be answered 
to every question that can be plainly asked ; and that 
everything thus answered is a settled thing, and to be 
maintained as a point of conscience. I need not adduce 
instances of this error, while its mischiefs are manifest 
eveiywhere in the wrongs done by premature and tena- 
cious judgments. 

I am aware that these are faults of the temper, not 
less than of the judgment ; but we know how much the 
temper is influenced by the character of our studies ; 
and I think if any one were to be free from this over- 
zeal of opinion, it should be one who is early instructed 
in an uncertain science, such as physiology. He might 
receive, with reverent submission, all revealed truth ; he 
might bend unquestioning to the declarations of teachers 
authorized to promulgate positive_ commandments ; but 
his habit of thinking how soon all inquiries concerning 
living things end in uncertainty, his experience of the 
exceeding difficulty of settling for ever even a small 
matter, would make him very scrupulous in accepting 
as completely proved, very slow in making a point of 
conscience of, anything that may be made a matter of 
reasonable discussion or of further study. 

Let me repeat, that I do not hold that it is beneficial 
to study only or chiefly such a science as this, whose 
principles scarcely admit of full proof. I know too well 
the danger of resting satisfied with error, when truth 
cannot be quite attained. But I lecture only as one of 



IDS DR. PAGET 

many, advocating the importance of as many different 
branches of study ; and I think that the early study of 
uncertainties might well be mingled with that of things 
which may be proved beyond all doubt. 

But I have yet to speak of that through which, I 
believe, the general teaching of physiology would exer- 
cise the greatest influence upon the mind ; namely, its 
being, essentially, a science of designs and final causes. 
In this (if we regard it in its full meaning, as the science 
concerning living things) it is chiefly in contrast with 
the physical sciences, and, so far as I know, with nearly 
all the other studies of even the widest scheme of 
education. 

I do not say that it is only in living things that we 
can discern the evidences of design. Doubtless, things 
that, are dead — things that we call inorganic, when we 
would distinguish them from living organisms — are yet 
purposive, and mutually adapted to co-operate in the 
fulfilment of design. We cannot doubt, for example, 
that all the parts, of this dead earth, and all the members 
of our planetary system, are adapted to one another 
with mutual influence ; balanced and laid out in appro- 
priate weight and measure; fitted each to do its part, 
and serve its purpose, in some vast design. And thus 
the whole universe might be called an organism ; con- 
structed in parts and systems, almost infinite in number 
and variety, but adjusted with an all-pervading purpose. 
Still, there is a striking difference between dead and 
living things, in the degree and manner in which their 
laws and their designs are manifest to us. In the inor- 
ganic world, in the studies of the physical sciences, we 
seem to come nearer to the efficient, than to the final, 
causes of events. We discern, it may be, both the most 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 169 

general laws, and the most minute details of the events : 
but these rarely shadow forth their purpose or design ; 
or, if they do, it is a design in adaptation to organic lif«3 
as where we may trace the fitness of the earth and air 
for their living occupants. But in the organic world, the 
reverse is true : purpose, design, and mutual fitness are 
manifest wherever we can discern the structure or the 
actions of a part; utility and mutual dependence are 
implied in all the language, and sought in all the studies, 
of physiology. The efficient causes and the general 
laws of the vital actions may be hidden from the keenest 
search; but their final causes are often nearly certain. 
In the sciences of the inorganic world, we can learn hozv 
changes are accomplished, but we can rarely tell %vhy 
they are : in those of the organic world, the question 
" why " can be often answered, the question " how " is 
generally an enigma that we cannot solve. 

Now, were there no other argument for the general 
teaching of physiology, I would be content with this : 
that an education which does not^ include the teaching 
of some science of natural designs, does not provide for 
the instruction of one of the best powers and aspirations 
of the mind. 

The askings of children seem to indicate a natural 
desire after the knowledge of the purposes fulfilled in 
nature. " Why ? " and " Of what use .-* " are the ends of 
half their untutored questions ; and we may be sure 
they have not the wish for such knowledge without the 
power of attaining it, if the needful help be given them. 
And yet, in the usual subjects of education, nothing 
addresses itself to this desire, and so there is not only a 
neglect of the teaching of the peculiar modes of reason- 
ing required, or admitted, in physiological research ; but 
9 



170 DR. PAGET 

the natural love and capacity for studying design are 
left to spend themselves, untrained, upon unworthy 
objects ; and so they fade or degenerate — degenerate, 
perhaps, into some such baseness as an impertinent 
curiosity about other men's matters. 

I would therefore have physiology taught to all, as 
a study of God's designs and purposes achieved ; as a 
science for which our natural desire after the knowledge 
of final causes seems to have been destined ; a science 
in which that desire, though it were infinite, might be 
satisfied ; and in which, as with perfect models of bene- 
ficence and wisdom, our own faculties of design may be 
instructed. I would not have its teaching limited to a 
bare declaration of the use and exact fitness of each 
part or organ of the body. This, indeed, should not 
be omitted ; for there are noble truths in the simplest 
demonstrations of the fitness of parts for their simplest 
purposes, and no study has been made more attractive 
than this by the ingenuity, the acuteness, and eloquence 
of its teachers. But I would go beyond this, and, 
striving, as I said before, to teach general truths as well 
as the details of science, I would try to lead the mind 
to the. contemplation of those general designs, from 
which it might gather the best lessons for its own 
guidance. 

If I may presume to speak as I would to boys or 
girls, I would say, let us learn frugality from some of 
the designs that we can study in the living body ; and 
surely the lesson may be the more impressive, if we 
remember that we are studying the frugality of One 
whose power and materials are infinite. 

Obser\'e, for example, what happens during active 
exercise ; how the heart beats quicker and harder than 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 17I 

it did before, and the skin grows warmer and ruddier, 
and the blood moves faster, and the breathing is quicker. 
The main design of this seems to be that the active 
muscles may be the more abundantly supplied with 
blood. But the beginning in the series of changes is an 
instance of that designed frugality of which I have been 
speaking. Veins, carrying blood to the heart, lie, as you 
see, branching and communicating under the skin ; and 
there are others, like them, deeper set among the muscles 
of both the limbs and the trunk. Now, muscles, Avhen 
they act, shorten and swell up ; and in so doing (as in 
active exercise), they compress the veins that lie be- 
tween them, or upon them underneath the skin. The 
effect of such compression must be to press the blood 
in every vein, equally in both directions, — both onwards 
towards the heart, and backwards from it. All that 
part of this pressure which is effective in propelling the 
blood towards the heart is so much added to the forces 
of the circulation ; it is so much direct gain of force. 
But it may seem as if this gain were balanced by an 
equal loss, through the influence of the same pressure 
driving other portions of the blood backwards. And so 
it would be, but for the arrangement of valves in the 
veins, which are the instruments of this saving of force. 
Wherever there are muscles that in their action can 
compress the veins, there also the veins have valves; 
and a diagram and a model would show that these are 
little pocket-shaped membranes, which project into the 
canals of the veins, in such a manner that they will 
allow the streams of blood to pass onwards to the heart, 
but will close at once and hinder any stream that would 
flow backwards. Thus, therefore, the effect of muscular 
pressure on the veins is (let us say), with a certain force, 



1/2 DR. PAGET 

to propel some blood towards the heart, and with the 
same force to press back other blood upon the valves 
and close them. You will say, then, here is still the 
same hindrance : if the valves be closed, the stream 
behind them must be stopped, and there is as much loss 
as gain. It would be so, if there were not tlris other 
.provision ; that wherever there can be muscular pressure 
upon veins, those veins not only have valves, but have 
abundant channels of communication with one another. 
The back-pressure of the blood, and the closure of the 
valves, is therefore no hindrance to the circulation ; for 
the blood, that might be stopped in one vein, makes 
its way at once into another by some communicating 
branch. The general result, therefore, is, that all mus- 
cular pressure upon veins is an almost unalloyed advan- 
tage to the circulation. And now mark the frugality of 
the design. Veins must lie in or near these places, and 
the muscles iJi7ist act (suppose for some design of our 
own) ; and if they are to be in very active exercise, they 
will need swifter streams of blood than will suffice in 
their repose. The streams could be made swifter by a 
greater force of the heart ; but heart-force is a thing to 
be economized ; and the muscles themselves may, with- 
out harm, contribute to accelerate the blood ; for in the 
fulfilment of their primary purpose, of moving and sus- 
taining the limbs and trunk, they must swell up, and 
compress the veins that are about them ; and this com- 
pression can be made effective for the circulation of the 
blood by the mechanism of valves. So then, in the 
necessary fulfilment of their primary use, and without 
the least hindrance or damage to it, the muscles are 
made to serve this secondary purpose ; and all that they 
do herein is so much saved to the forces of the heart. 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 1 73 

Scarcely a lesson in physiology could be given but it 
might illustrate some such design as this. Everywhere 
we see examples of parts thus made to serve bye-pur- 
poses while fulfilling their primary designs. 

I will mention but one more. All know that the air 
we have once breathed is less fit for breathing than it 
was before, and that if we breathe the same air often it 
becomes poisonous, through the mixture of the carbonic 
acid and other exhalations from the lungs. We must 
breathe out the air, therefore, as so much refuse ; and 
ample provision is made that we may do so ; and it 
might seem design enough fulfilled when we are thus 
freed from our own poison. But is it not an admirable 
secondary design, an admirable frugality, a true wisdom 
by the way, that, with this same air, we speak ; that 
this, which we must cast out lest it destroy us, should 
be used for one of the noblest powers of man } Surely, 
one might have supposed, for so great a purpose as 
the communion of human thoughts, and for all that 
speech and vocal melody can achieve, there would 
be contrived some matchless instrument, some rare 
material. But no: the instruments of human speech 
are scarcely more complex organs than those which 
dumb creatures have to breathe and feed with; and 
the material for human speech carries out the refuse 
of blood ; the very dross of the body is used for the 
coinage of the mind. 

Such might be some lessons in that Divine frugality 
which is ever " gathering up the fragments that remain, 
that nothing be lost." The moral of such lessons is very 
plain. 

Not less significant are those which may be studied in 
the designs of the body during its development. All 



174 DR. PAGET 

these arc instances of present things having their true 
purpose in some future state. 

Let me endeavour to illustrate some of them. 

I have here models of the changes that the chick 
undergoes in its development; and what they show 
might suffice for teaching the development of higher 
creatures. Now, nearly all we see here is the working 
out of a design, which cannot have its full end till some 
future time. These wings and legs — of what avail are 
they to the prisoner in the shell ? Their purpose is not 
yet fulfilled ; they are for the future. But if these be 
too plain to be impressive, let us look at more particular 
things. 

Observe the changes through which the heart passes, 
from its first appearance as a little pulsating bag, to 
its being nearly fit for the time when the hatched bird 
will breathe in the open air. The changes are not 
merely a growth from a little heart to a big one; but 
are a series of acquirements of more complex shapes ; 
so that the heart, which at first is a simple bag, then 
becomes very curved, and then divides into two, and 
then into three and four, cavities. Now, doubtless, in 
each of these conditions, the heart is exactly appropriate 
to the contemporary state of the other organs, and the 
circumstances of the time of life; but each of them is, 
besides, a necessary stage of transition towards that 
more perfect state, that fitness for more complex duties, 
which the heart attains when the bird is born to breatlie 
with lungs in the open air. 

But I would descend yet lower, and, magnifying the 
wonders of these plans for the future, by diminishing 
(as it may seem to some) the importance of the objects 
in which they arc displayed, would trace the develop- 



ON THE STUDY OF ' PHYSIOLOGY. 175 

ment of a single blood-cell in a tadpole — /. c. in the 
young fish-like embryo of a frog, such as nearly every 
pool would supply in the spring-time, and such as 
magnified sketches would fully illustrate. 

By a blood-cell, I mean one of those microscopic 
particles by which the blood is coloured red : particles 
so minute that, in our own blood, about ten millions 
might lie on a square inch of surface. 

In the earliest period of active life of these tadpoles, 
the little black and fish-like body is composed almost 
wholly of minute cells ; among which you can trace, 
with even powerful microscopes, scarce any difference. 
You could not tell the future destiny of any of them by 
their present characters ; they look all alike. But pre- 
sently, as they increase in number, a differencing begins 
among them, and a sorting of them ; and some arrange 
themselves for a spinal column, and some for muscles ; 
and some are seen to be placed where the first streams 
of blood are to run ; and some are clustered where the 
heart will be. At first, those that are to be blood-cells 
are round, and darkly shaded, and contain yellowish 
particles, many of which are like four-sided crystals of 
some fatty substance. But, in a day or two, the cells 
begin to move and circulate in the channels in which 
they were arranged ; and then, as we watch them day 
by day, they gradually change. The particles within 
them become smaller and less numerous, and collect 
near to their borders ; while their centres, clearing up, 
show an enclosed smaller body or nucleus. Moreover, 
as these changes proceed, the cells which were before 
colourless, acquire gradually a deeper and deeper blood- 
tint, and exchange their round for an oval shape ; till, by 
the time that all the particles they first contained are 



176 DR. PAGET 

cleared away, as if by solution, they have become per- 
fect blood-cells, nearly like those which colour the blood 
of the completely developed frog. 

The time required for these changes depends much on 
the temperature and degree of light to which the crea- 
ture is exposed. It may vary from one to three or more 
weeks ; and we can thus deliberately watch the develop- 
ment of a blood-cell, day by day, until it reaches that 
which we may call its perfection. In this state the cells 
abide for a time, unchanging ; and then decline and give 
place to another set of blood-cells, each of which is 
developed through a series of changes different, indeed, 
from those that I have described, but not less numerous 
or complex. 

Now, such is the life, up to the period of perfection, 
of every blood-cell in this trivial creature. And so it is 
in ourselves. Of the millions of those cells that colour 
our blood, not one reaches its perfection but through 
changes as numerous and great as these. 

Perhaps the wonder is augmented if we think that, in 
the embryo, the changes proceed, with equal steps, in all 
the cells at once : there is exact concert among them ; if 
I may so speak, they all keep time. Nor is the harmony 
limited to them; for their development is exactly ad- 
justed to that of every other part: successive changes 
are exactly concurrent in every part at once; so that, 
though all are continually changing, they never lose 
their mutual fitness. 

I might cite more instances of these plans for futurity ; 
but they are nearly infinite ; for in truth, (and what a 
moral there is in such a truth !) in the living world, 
nothing is made at once fit for the highest purposes of 
which it may be capable. In all the countless crowds of 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 1 77 

living beings, — in all the countless particles of each,— 
there is not one but in the history of its life we may read 
a gradual attainment of its highest destiny ; not one but 
has a time in which its true purpose is yet future, its true 
design yet unfulfilled; and, although, even in its rudi- 
ment, it is not useless, yet there will be a time when, 
with higher powers, it will take part in the designs of 
some more perfect state. So wide is that law, which 
has its highest instance in the history and future destiny 
of man himself. 

But the evidence of the design of living bodies for 
conditions that are yet future, seems to culminate in the 
proofs of their capacity to repair injuries, and to recover 
from diseases. 

It is surely only because it is so familiar, that we 
think lightly, if at all, of the fact that living bodies are 
capable of repairing most of the injuries they may 
sustain ; and that, in this capacity, they show that pro- 
vision has been made, in them, for events of which it is 
not certain whether they will ever occur to them or 
not. When we contemplate the perfect living body, the 
exact fitness of every part for its office, not as an in- 
dependent agent, but as one whose work must be done 
in due proportion with that of many others, is a very 
marvellous thing; but it seems much more marvellous 
that, in the embryo, each of these parts was made fit for 
offices and relations that were then future : but surely 
more marvellous than all it is, that each of these, when 
perfect, should still have capacity for right action in 
events that are not only future, but unlikely; that are 
indeed possible, but are in only so low a degree probable, 
that if ever they happen, they will be called accidents — 
as things not to be expected or provided for. 



i;8 PR. VAC.KT 

Let mo iloscribo a process of repair, aiul (.Ksciil'o it .so 
simply, as it mii;ht be to sehool-hoys. 

All know, or cat\ feel, their Achilles-tei\iloiis bchinil 
their ancles, anil that these, stroni;- as they arc, arc 
sometimes barken by a violent contraction o( their 
n\uscles. I know not how small — how almost intinitely 
small — the chance is. th.at any i^iven man, or ipiadrupeii. 
WvMiKl ever break this or any vUher part ; but. small a-- 
the chatu'e may be. ample provision is maiie for its 
tvpair. How this is accomplished may be ai^ain illus- 
tratct-l by iliai;rams. 

When the tendon in such an animal as a rabbit is 
\.livi«.led, its pieces separate to nearly an inch apaj;t. the 
upper piece beinj;' drawn up b\- the unrestricted action 
of its nuiscles. The n\uscles, no Ioniser fastened by the 
tendon to the heel-bone, are thus rendered useless ; and 
the object of the reparative pn>cess must be to form a 
bond of cv>nnexion between the separated pieces of the 
tendon. 

In the two ilays foliowini; such an injury, all the 
structures between :ind around the ends of the ilivided 
tendon appear soaked with a lialt'-liquid substance, the 
prvxluct of intlammation. And thus far we see no plan 
tor unitiivg" the separated pieces ; there is no more of 
this new substance in the line between them than there 
is aanmd them ; and all the new substance appears alike. 
lUit in the course of two days more, we fuid that fresh 
material is deposited between the separated pieces of 
the tendons, and that it is fimier than that around, and 
has finn hold on the ends of the separated pieces, and 
connects them, though as yet (if I may so say) only 
clum.^ily. At"tcr this, however, each day finds the con- 
nectinij substance becomin>y firmer, touirher, and more 



(W THE STVtfr OF TaYSIOUXSY, 179 

Uke tlie teztate of tibe Imdoa llifd£ Eodi d;^, too, it 
bccooKs fiiofe defined from die sanooiM&i^ psufs ; and 
tbir It dociy not ooty because itelf beooines flKwe cacactfy 
Aapedybot liecattce tb^tiegpatii flidr natncal te%tnf!& 
AjmI ofafenre tiie da^imet deuffi whadi » Aomn m ftuat 
ooatmut. At fifsf^ all tlie PGUts at and stMNit tibc seat of 
kijtuj were tcaiked with a sinular matenal ; bat now, 
that poftioaof tiUs mafnwl wbkh hty in fbephcefor 
tbe lannatioa of tbe connecting bond, bas retm^ntd and 
omtnbuted to tbe r^air; but tbat Tportioa of it ivbidk 
wsts mote lemoC^ andcoold serre no ose^ prnpose; bas 
bcm deawd awa^. 

At tbe end of a wed^ in Ihe abbit, a coof^ete cofd' 
like bond of onion is ibmedyand Ute anwHes can act 
stgun. By dus iitne, too, tbe bond bas g»w»f»^ neaiKr 
tbe pexfect textnie and tibe towghnnat of tibe odg^nal 
tendon. I once tried tbe stcengdb of sadi a bond of 
connexion, nbidi badJbecn Usaaaag lor tea dxfs after 
tbe ^vision of flac AcbiUcs-tendon of a yoong fabbit. 
Haviflg tetaaved it horn, the dead hody, I suspended 
wei^^bts i^pon it; and, after beating wci^bts of twenty; 
tbirty; (otty, and 6ttf pomads^ it vas at lengtb hrektn 
by anrgg^offifty-^xpownds. Botsosefy^tibestieagfb 
it dtowtd was rety woadeifui, if we re m e mb er tibat it 
was not more tban tibe sixtb of an incb in its greatest 
thiflmesiy and fkat it was wbolly Ibfmed m ten day% 
m tibe leg of a labbit scascely more tban a poond in 



I mi£^ ainrtrate Ih^ pfoce» o( tegaar by instanors 
as pet^Eict as tibeae; observed after u^uaea of many; 
almost of any, parts. And I flnji^ as m Ihe imtancir 
of devdopment; magfaify ks cxcetlemce hy ^bowing it 
in nbat we are afit to call trivial creatwes or eren by 



iSo DR, PAGET 

showing that, in general, those lower species of animals 
that have the least means of escape or defence from 
mutilation, appear to be endowed with the most ample 
powers of repair. But time will not permit this, nor yet 
that I should show how many lessons of practical utility 
might be engrafted on the teaching of a process such as 
this, or how the main principles of the surgery of injuries 
are based on the recognition of the natural power of 
recovery. Nearly its whole practice consists in the 
prevention of any interference with that to which there 
is, in the very nature of the body, as great a tendency, 
as there is for the embryo to be developed into the 
perfect creature. Using the facts of the reparative 
process only for the present purpose of showing how 
physiology might be taught as the chief science of 
designs, I would say that the arguments of design, which 
are here displayed, are such as cannot be impugned by 
the suspicion, that the events among which each living 
thing is cast have determined its adaptation to them ; 
because the adaptations here noted prove capacities for 
things that are future, and only not impossible. 

I will mention but one more instance of general 
design, which I think should not be omitted in, the 
teaching of physiology to whatever class of students — 
that, namely, of the adaptation of animals in their 
decay ; how, as they do not live, so neither do they 
decay or die, for themselves alone, but ministering to 
others' good. 

The chief evidence of this is in the provision, that 
the decaying parts of animals yield the materials from 
which the vegetable kingdom derives its chief supply 
of food. In the ordinary decomposition of the dead 
body, many of the products are the very materials from 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. i8l 

which, as they are mingled with the earth and atmo- 
sphere, each plant takes its food. But it is not. alone 
through this decay in death, that animals restore to the 
vegetable world the materials which they have, for their 
own food, derived from it. The same rule is fulfilled in 
the decay of life; i.e. in those changes which occur when 
the particles of the animal body, having served their 
purpose, or lived their full time in it, are then to be cast 
out as refuse. For in all these changes, which are a 
part of that constant mutation of particles through 
which the body remains, through all the time of vigorous 
life, the same, though continually changing, — in all these, 
the material which is passing out, as refuse, gradually 
approximates, in its transition, to the inorganic state of 
matter. It is so with the carbonic acid and other ex- 
halations from the lungs and skin, and with all the 
class of substances excreted. And thus, every form of 
degeneration or decay, whether in life or after death, 
may be described as a series of changes, through which 
the elements of organic bodies, instead of being on a 
sudden and with violence dispersed, are gradually col- 
lected into those lower combinations in which they may 
best rejoin the inorganic world : they are such changes, 
that every creature may be said to decay and die and 
cast out its refuse in the form which may best fit it to 
discharge its share in the economy of the world, — either 
by supplying nutriment to other organisms, or by taking 
its right part in the adjustment of the balance held be- 
tween the organic and inorganic masses. 

I have thus endeavoured to fulfil my office, and to 
show how the general teaching of physiology might do 
good among its students. I think its advantages are 
such as might be apprehended by students of all classes 



l82 DR. PAGET 

in society. I suppose, too, that, for all that part of it 
which can be applied in the maintenance of health the 
merit of utility would be admitted ; and that, in general 
terms, it would be allowed that the study of designs and 
final causes should be mingled with other studies in any 
scheme of education by which it is proposed that the 
whole mind should be disciplined, and all modes of 
reasoning should be taught. 

But still, the question may be asked, Is it possible 
that knowledge such as this, of the methods of design, 
will rest, with any influence, in a mind that must be 
engrossed in urgent business, or in household cares; 
harassed, perhaps, in struggles against poverty, or dis- 
sipated in the luxuries of wealth ? It may be very well 
(some will say) to teach these things to the young, but 
men and women have other works and other pleasures 
to pursue. 

I know all this ; and I have overshot my mark if I 
have urged any teaching of which the effects would in- 
terfere with devotion to the necessary works of later 
life. But I suppose that, if any one will watch his 
thoughts for a few days, or even a few hours, he will 
find that, however engrossing may be his cares or his 
pleasures, however earnest his attention to what seems 
his most urgent need, there are yet intermingling trains 
of thought quite alien from these : — trains into which the 
mind falls, it knows not how, but in which it will wander 
as if resolute to refresh itself. Now these must be pro- 
vided for; and so it must be an object of all education 
to supply, in early life, those studies from which, in later 
years, may arise reflections that may mingle happily 
with the business-thoughts of common days ; that may 
suggest to the reason, or even to the imagination, some 



ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 183 

hidden meaning, some future purpose, some noble end, 
in the things about us. Reflections such as these, being 
interwoven with our common thoughts, may often bring 
to our Hfe a tone of joy, which its general aspect would 
not wear ; like brilliant threads shot through the texture 
of some sombre fabric, giving lustre to its darkness. 

But besides this happy influence of the general im- 
pressions that might remain in the mind from the early 
teaching of physiology, I claim for it the hope that its 
principles might read to some minds lessons of the truest 
wisdom. 

The student of Nature's purposes should surely be 
averse from leading a purposeless existence. Watching 
design in everything around him, he could not fail, one 
would think, to reflect often on the purpose of his own 
existence. And doing so, if his mind were imbued with 
the knowledge of the mutual fitness in which all the 
members of his body, and all the parts of the whole 
organic world, subsist, and minister to each other's good, 
he could not conclude that he exists for his own sake 
alone, or that happiness would be found separate from 
the offices of mutual help and of universal good-will. 
One who is conversant with things that have a purpose 
in the future, higher than that which they have yet ful- 
filled, would never think that his own highest destiny is 
yet achieved. Though his place among men might be 
only like that of a single particle — like that of a single 
blood-cell of the body — yet would he strive to concur, 
and take his share, in all progressive good. Nor would 
he count that, with this life ended, his purpose would be 
attained ; but by teaching, or by record, or by some 
other of those means, through which, in the history of 
our race, things that in their rudiments seemed trivial 



1 84 DR. PAGET ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY, 

have been developed into great results, he would strive 
to " achieve at least some useful work, the fruit whereof 
might abide." Conscious of an immortal nature, and 
of desires and capacities for knowledge, which cannot 
be satisfied in this world, he would be sure that the 
great law of progress, from a lower to a higher state, 
would not be abrogated in the Divine government of 
that part of him which cannot perish, and is not yet 
perfect. In him, even the understanding would be 
assured that, " as we have borne the image of the 
earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly ; " 
for that is the true lesson of development. 

And because it abounds in lessons such as these, I 
claim for physiology the pre-eminence among all sci- 
ences, for the clear and full analogies which it displays 
between truths natural and revealed : and I would teach 
it everywhere ; looking to its help, by these analogies, 
to prove the concord between knowledge and belief, 
and to mediate in the ever-pending conflict of intellect 
and faith. 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE EDUCATION 
OF THE JUDGMENT. 

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION 
OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



BY 

PROFESSOR FARADAY, F.R.S. 



ON THE 

EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 

I TAKE courage, Sir,* from your presence here this day, 
to speak boldly that which is upon my mind. I feared 
that it might be unpleasant to some of my audience, but 
as I know that your Royal Highness is a champion for 
and desires the truth, I will believe that all here are 
united in the same cause, and therefore will give utter- 
ance, without hesitation, to what I have to say regarding 
the present condition of Mental Education. 

If the term education may be understood in so large 
a sense as to include all that belongs to the improvement 
of the mind, either by the acquisition of the knowledge 
of others, or by increase of it through its own exertions, 
then I may hope to be justified for bringing forward a 
few desultory observations respecting the exercise of the 
mental powers in a particular direction, which otherwise 
might seem out of place. The points I have in view are 
general, but they are manifest in a striking manner, 
among the physical matters which have occupied my 
life ; and as the latter afford a field for exercise in which 
cogitations and conclusions can be subjected to the rigid 
tests of fact and experiment, — as all classes employ 
themselves more or less in the consideration of physical 
matters, and may do so with great advantage, if inclined 
in the least degree to profit by educational practices, so 

• Prince Albeit cceiipicd the chair. 



1 00 PROFESSOR FARADAY 

I hope that what I may say will find its application in 
every condition of life. 

Before entering upon the subject, I must make one 
distinction which, however it may appear to others, is to 
me of the utmost importance. High as man is placed 
above the creatures around him, there is a higher and 
far more exalted position within his view ; and the ways 
are infinite in which he occupies his thoughts about 
the fears, or hopes, or expectations of a future life. 1 
believe that the truth of that future cannot be brought 
to his knowledge by any exertion of his mental powers, 
however exalted they may be ; that it is made known 
to him by other teaching than his own, and is received 
through simple belief of the testimony given. Let no 
one suppose for a moment that the self-education I am 
about to commend in respect of the things of this life, 
extends to any considerations of the hope set before us, 
as if man by reasoning could find out God. It would be 
improper here to enter upon this subject further than 
to claim an absolute distinction between religious and 
ordinary belief. I shall be reproached with the weak- 
ness of refusing to apply those mental operations which 
I think good in respect of high things to the very 
highest, I am content to bear the reproach. Yet, even 
in earthly matters, I believe that the invisible things of 
Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, 
being understood by the things that are made, even His 
eternal power and Godhead ; and I have never seen any- 
thing incompatible between those things of man which 
can be known by the spirit of man which is within him, 
and those higher things concerning his future which he 
cannot know by that spirit. 

Claiming, then, the use of the ordinary faculties of the 



ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 1 89 

mind in ordinary things, let me next endeavour to point 
out what appears to me to be a great deficiency in the 
exercise of the mental powers in every direction : three 
words will express this great want, deficiency of judgment. 
I do not wish to make any startling assertion, but I know 
that in physical matters multitudes are ready to draw 
conclusions who have little or no power of judgment in 
the cases ; that the same is true of other departments of 
knowledge ; and that, generally, mankind is willing to 
leave the faculties which relate to judgment almost 
entirely uneducated, and their decisions at the mercy of 
ignorance, prepossessions, the passions, or even accident. 

Do jiot suppose, because I stand here and speak 
thus, making no exceptions, that I except myself I 
have learned to know that I fall infinitely short of 
that efficacious exercise of the judgment which may 
be attained. There are exceptions to my general con- 
clusion, numerous and high ; but if we desire to know 
how far education is required, we do not consider the 
few who need it not, but the many who have it not ; 
and in respect of judgment, the number of the latter 
is almost infinite. I am moreover persuaded, that the 
clear and powerful minds which have realized in some 
degree the intellectual preparation I am about to refer 
to, will admit its importance, and indeed its necessity ; 
and that they will not except themselves, nor think that 
I have made my statement too extensive. 

As I believe that a very large proportion of the errors 
we make in judgment is a simple and direct result of 
our perfectly unconscious state, and think that a demon- 
stration of the liabilities we are subject to would aid 
greatly in providing a remedy, I will proceed first to a 
few illustrations of a physical nature. Nothing can 



190 PROFESSOR FARADAY 

better supply them than the intimations we derive from 
our senses : to them we trust directly ; by them we 
become acquainted with external things, and gain the 
power of increasing and varying facts upon which we 
entirely depend. Our sense perceptions are wonderful. 
Even in the observant, but unreflective infant, they soon 
produce a result which looks like intuition, because of 
its perfection. Coming to the mind as so many data, 
they are stored up, and, without our being conscious of 
it, are ever after used in like circumstances in forming 
our judgment; and it is not wonderful that man is 
accustomed to trust them without examination. Never- 
theless, the result is the effect of education : the mind 
has to be instructed with regard to the senses and their 
intimations through every step of life ; and where the 
instruction is imperfect, it is astonishing how soon and 
how much their evidence fails us. Yet, in the latter 
years of life, we do not consider this matter, but, having 
obtained the ordinary teaching sufficient for ordinary 
purposes, we venture to judge of things which are 
extraordinary for the time, and almost always with the 
more assurance as our powers of observation are less 
educated. Consider the following case of a physical 
impression, derived from the sense of touch, which can 
be examined and verified at pleasure : — If the hands be 
brought towards each other so that the tips of the 
corresponding fingers touch, the end of any finger may 
be considered as an object to be felt by the opposed 
finger ; thus, the two middle fingers may for the present 
be so viewed. If the attention be directed to them, no 
difficulty will be experienced in moving each lightly in a 
circle round the tip of the other, so that they shall each 
feel the opposite, and the motion may be either in one 



ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT, I9I 

direction or the other — looking at the fingers, or with 
eyes employed elsewhere — or with the remaining fingers 
touching quiescently, or moving in a like direction ; all 
is easy, because each finger is employed in the ordinary 
or educated manner whilst obeying the will, and whilst 
communicating through the sentient organ with the 
brain. But turn the hands half way round, so that their 
backs shall be towards each other, and then, crossing 
them at the wrists, again bring the like fingers into 
contact at the tips. If it be now desired to move the 
extremities of the middle fingers round each other, or 
to follow the contour of one finger by the tip of the 
opposed one, all sorts of confusion in the motion will 
ensue ; and as the finger of one hand tries, under the 
instruction of the will, to move in one course, the 
touched finger will convey an intimation that it is 
moving in another. If all the fingers move at once, all 
will be in confusion, the ease and simplicity of the first 
case having entirely disappeared. If, after some con- 
siderable trial, familiarity with the new circumstances 
have removed part of the uncertainty, then, crossing the 
hands at the opposite sides of the wrists will renew it. 
These contrary results are dependent not on any change 
in the nature of the sentient indication, or of the surfaces 
or substances which the sense has to deal with, but upon 
the trifling circumstance of a little variation from the 
direction in which the sentient organs of these parts are 
usually exerted, and they show to what an extraordinary 
extent our interpretations of the sense impressions 
depend upon the experience, i.e. the education which 
they have previously received, and their great inability 
to aid us at once in circumstances which are entirely 
new. 



192 PROFESSOR ^'ARADAY 

At other times they fail us because we cannot keep 
a true remembrance of former impresssions. Thus, on 
the evening of the eleventh of March last, I and many- 
others were persuaded that at one period the moon had 
a real green colour, and though I knew that the pre- 
vailing red tints of the general sky were competent to 
produce an effect of such a kind, yet there was so little 
of that in the neighbourhood of the planet, that I was 
doubtful whether the green tint was not produced on 
the moon by some aerial medium spread before it, until, 
by holding up white cards in a proper position, and 
comparing them with our sateUite, I had determined 
experimentally that the effect was only one of contrast. 
In the midst of the surrounding tints, my memory could 
not recall the true sentient impression which the white of 
the moon most surely had before made upon the eye. 

At other times the failure is because one impression 
is overpowered by another; for as the morning star 
"lisappears when the sun is risen, though still above 
the horizon and shining brightly as ever, so do stronger 
phenomena obscure weaker, even when both are of the 
same kind ; till an uninstructed person is apt to pass 
the weaker unobserved, and even deny their existence. 

So, error results occasionally from believing our 
senses : it ought to be considered, rather, as an error 
of the judgment than of the sense, for the latter has per- 
formed its duty ; the indication is always correct, and in 
harmony with the- great truth of nature. Where, then, 
is the mistake } — almost entirely with our judgment. 
We have not had that sufHcient instruction by the 
senses which would justify our making a conclusion; 
we have to contrive extra ^and special means, by which 
their first impressions shall be corrected, or rather en- 



ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. I93 

larged ; and it is because our procedure was hasty, our 
data too few, and our judgment untaught, that we fell 
into mistake ; not because the data were wrong. How 
frequently may each one of us perceive, in our neigh- 
bours, at least, that a result like this derived from the 
observation of physical things, happens in the ordinary 
affairs of common life. 

When I become convicted of such haste, which is not 
unfrequently the case, I look back upon the error as 
one of "presumptuous judgment." Under that form 
it is easily presentable to the mind, and has a useful 
corrective action. I do not think the expression too 
strong ; for if we are led, either by simplicity or vanity, 
to give an opinion upon matters respecting which we are 
not instructed, either by the knowledge of others, or our 
own intimate observation ; if we are induced to ascribe 
an effect to one force, or deny its relation to another, 
knowing little or nothing of the laws of the forces, or 
the .necessary conditions of the effect to be considered*, 
surely our judgment must be qualified as "presump- 
tuous." 

There are multitudes who think themselves competent 
to decide, after the most cursory observation, upon the 
cause of this or that event (and they may be really very 
acute and correct in things familiar to them) : — a not 
unusual phrase with them is, that " it stands to reason," 
that the effect they expect should result from the cause 
they assign to it, and yet it is very difficult, in numerous 
cases that appear plain, to show this reason, or to deduce 
the true -and only rational relation of cause and effect. 
In matters connected with natural philosophy, we have 
wonderful aid in the progress and assurance in the 
character, of our final judgment, afforded us by the facts 
10 



194 PROFESSOR FARADAY 

which supply our data, and the experience which mul- 
tiphes their number and varies their testimony. A 
fundamental fact, like an elementary principle, never 
fails us, its evidence is always true ; but, on the other 
hand, we frequently have to ask what is the fact ? — often 
fail in distinguishing it, — often fail in the very state- 
ment of it, — and mostly overpass or come short of its 
true recognition. 

If we are subject to mistake in the interpretation of 
our mere sense impressions, we are much more liable to 
error when we proceed to deduce from these impressions 
(as supplied to us by our ordinary experience), the 
relation of cause and effect ; and the accuracy of our 
judgment, consequently, is more endangered. Then our 
dependence should be upon carefully observed facts, and 
the laws of nature ; and I shall proceed to a further 
illustration of the mental deficiency I speak of, by a 
brief reference to one of these. 

The laws of nature, as we understand them, are the 
foundation of our knowledge in natural things. So 
much as we know of them has been developed by the 
successive energies of the highest intellects, exerted 
through many ages. After a most rigid and scrutinizing 
examination upon principle and trial, a definite expres- 
sion has been given to them ; they have become, as it 
were, our belief or trust. From day to day we still 
examine and test our expressions of them. We have no 
interest in their retention if erroneous ; on the contrary, 
the greatest discovery a man could make would be to 
p/ove that one of these accepted laws was erroneous, 
and his greatest honour would be the discovery. Neither 
would there be any desire to retain the former expres- 
sion ; for we know that the new or the amended law 



ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 195 

would be far more productive in results, would greatly 
increase our intellectual acquisitions, and would prove 
an abundant source of fresh delight to the mind. 

These laws are numerous, and are more or less com- 
prehensive. They are also precise ; for a law may pre- 
sent an apparent exception, and yet not be less a law 
to us, when the exception is included in the expression. 
Thus, that elevation of temperature expands all bodies 
is a well-defined law, though there be an exception in 
water for a limited temperature ; because we are careful, 
whilst stating the law, to state the exception and its 
limits. Pre-eminent among these laws, because of its 
simplicity, its universality, and its undeviating truth, 
stands that enunciated by Newton (commonly called 
the law of gravitation), that matter attracts matter with 
a force inversely as the square of the distance. Newton 
showed that, by this law, the general condition of things 
oii the surface of the earth is governed ; and the globe 
itself, with all upon it, icept together as a whole. He 
demonstrated that the motions of the planets round the 
sun, and of the satellites about the planets, were sub- 
ject to it. During and since his time, certain variations 
in the movements of the planets, which were called 
irregularities, and might, for aught that was then known, 
be due to some cause other than the attraction of gravi- 
tation, were found to be its necessary consequences. By 
the close and scrutinizing attention of minds the most 
persevering and careful, it was ascertained that even the 
distant stars were subject to this law; and, at last, to 
place as it were the seal of assurance to its never-failing 
truth, it became, in the minds of Leverrier and Addams 
(1845), the foreteller and the discoverer of an orb rolling 
in the depths of space, so large as to equal nearly sixty 



196 PROFESSOR FARADAY 

earths, yet so far away as to be invisible to the un- 
assisted eye. What truth, beneath that of revelation, 
can have an assurance stronger than this ! 

Yet this law is often cast aside as of no value or 
authority, because of the unconscious ignorance amidst 
which we dwell. You hear at the present day, that 
some persons can place their fingers on a table, and 
then elevating their hands, the table will rise up and 
follow them ; that the piece of furniture, though heavy, 
will ascend, and that their hands bear no weight, or are 
not drawn down to the wood : you do not hear of this 
as a conjuring manoeuvre, to be shown for your amuse- 
ment, but are expected seriously to believe it ; and are 
told that it is an important fact, a great discovery 
amongst. the truths of nature. Your neighbour, a well- 
meaning, conscientious person, believes it ; and the as- 
sertion finds acceptance in every rank of society, and 
amongst classes which are esteemed to be educated. 
Now, what can this imply but that society, speaking 
generally, is not only ignorant as respects education of 
the judgment, but is also ignorant of its ignorance .-* The 
parties who are thus persuaded, and those who are 
inclined to think and to hope that they are right, throw 
up Newton's law at once, and that in a case which of 
all others is fitted to be tested by it ; or if the law be 
erroneous, to test the law. I will not say they oppose 
the law, though I have heard the supposed fact quoted 
triumphantly against it; but as far as my observation 
has gone, they will not apply it. The law affords the 
.simplest means of testing the fact;, and if there be, 
indeed, anything in the latter new to our knowledge 
(and who shall say that new matter is not presented to 
us daily, passing away unrecognised), it also affords the 



ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. I97 

means of placing that before us separately in its sim- 
plicity and truth. Then why not consent to apply the 
knowledge we have to that which is under development ? 
Shall we educate ourselves in what is known, and then, 
casting away all we have acquired, turn to our ignorance 
for aid to guide us among the unknown ? IF so, instruct . 
a man to write, but employ one who is unacquainted 
with letters to read that which is written ; the end will 
be just as unsatisfactory, though not so injurious, for the 
book of nature, which we have to read, is written by the 
finger of God. Why should not one who can thus lift a 
table, proceed to verify and simplify his fact, and bring 
it into relation with the law of Newton .-• Why should 
he not take the top of his table (it may be a small one), 
and placing it in a balance, or on a lever, proceed to 
ascertain how much weight he can raise by the draught 
of his fingers upwards ; and of this weight, so ascer- 
tained, how much is unrepresented by any pull upon the 
fingers downward ? He will then be able to investigate 
the further question, whether electricity, or any new 
force of matter, is made manifest in his operations ; or 
whether action and reactian being unequal, he has at 
his command the source of a perpetual motion. Such a 
man, furnished with a nicely constructed carriage on 
a railway, ought to travel by the mere draught of his 
own fingers. A far less prize than this would gain him 
the attention of the whole scientific and commercial 
world ; and he may rest assured, that if he can make the 
most delicate balance incline or decline by attraction, 
though it be only with the force of an ounce, or even a 
grain, he will not fail to gain universal respect and most 
honourable reward. 

When we think of the laws of nature (which by con- 



198 rROFi:ssou faraday 

tinucd observation have become known to us), as the 
proper tests to which any new fact, or our theoretical 
representation of it, should, in the first place, be sub- 
jected, let us contemplate their assured and large 
character. Let us go out into the field and look at 
the heavens, with their solar, starry, and planetary 
glories ; the sky with its clouds ; the waters descen4ing 
from above, or wandering at our feet ; the animals, the 
trees, the plants ; and consider the permanency of their 
actions and conditions under the government of these 
laws. The most delicate flower, the tcnderest insect, 
continues in its species through countless years ; always 
varying, yet ever the same. When we think we have 
discovered a departure, as in the Aphides, Meduscs, 
Distoma;, &c., the law concerned is itself the best means 
of instituting an investigation, and hitherto we have 
always found the witness to return to its original tes- 
timony. These frail things are never ceasing, never 
changing, evidence of the law's immutability. It would 
be well for a man who has an anomalous case before 
him, to contemplate a blade of grass, and when he has 
considered the numerous coas.eless, yet certain, actions 
there located, and his inability to change the character 
of the least among them, to recur to his new subject; 
and, in place of accepting unwatched and unchecked 
results, to search for a like certainty and recurrence in 
the appearances and actions which belong to it. 

Perhaps it may be said, the delusion of table-moving 
is past, and need not be recalled before an audience like 
the present; — even granting this, let us endeavour to 
make the subject leave one useful result; let it serve 
for an example, not to pass into forgctfulncss. It is so 
recent, and was received by the public in a manner so 



ON TilE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 199 

strange, as to justify a reference to it, in proof of the 
uneducated condition of the general mind. I do not 
object to table-moving, for itself ; for being once stated 
it becomes a fit, though a very unpromising subject for 
experiment : but I am opposed to the unwillingness of 
its advocates to investigate ; their boldness to assert ; the 
credulity of the lookers-on ; their desire that the reserved 
and cautious objector should be in error ; and I wish, by 
calling attention to these things, to make the general 
want of mental discipline and education manifest. 

Having endeavoured to point out this great deficiency 
in the exercise of the intellect, I wall offer a few remarks 
upon the means of subjecting it to the improving pro- 
cesses of instruction. Perhaps many who watch over 
the interests of the community, and are anxious for its 
welfare, will conclude, that the development of the 
judgment cannot properly be included in the general 
idea of education ; that as the education proposed must, 
to a very large degree, be of self, it is so far incommu- 
nicable ; that the master and the scholar merge into one, 
and both disappear ; that the instructor is no wiser than 
the one to be instructed, and thus the usual relations of 
the two lose their power. Still, I believe that the judg- 
ment may be educated to a very large extent, and might 
refer to the fine arts, as giving proof in the affirmative ; 
and though, as respects the community and its improve- 
ment in relation to common things, any useful educa- 
tion must be of self, I think that society, as a body, may 
act powerfully in the cause. Or it may still be objected 
that my. experience is imperfect, is chiefly derived from 
exercise of the mind within the precincts of natural 
philosophy, and has not that generality of application 



20O PROFESSOR FARADAY 

Avhich can make it of any value to society at large. 1 
can only repeat my conviction, that society occupies 
itself now-a-days about physical matters, and judges 
them as common things. Failing in relation to them, 
it is equally liable to carry such failures into other 
matters of life. The proof of deficient judgment in one 
department shows the habit of mind, and the general 
want, in relation to others. I am persuaded that all 
persons may find in natural things an admirable school 
for self-instruction, and a field for the necessary mental 
exercise ; that they may easily apply their habits of 
thought, thus formed, to a social use ; and that they 
ought to do this, as a duty to themselves and their 
generation. 

Let me first try to illustrate the former part of the 
case, and at the same time state what I think a man 
may and ought to do for himself. 

The self-edtication to which he should be stimulated 
by the desire to improve his judgment, requires no blind 
dependance upon the dogmas of others, but is com- 
mended to him by the suggestions and dictates of his 
own common sense. The first part of it is founded in 
mental discipline : happily, it requires no unpleasant 
avowals ; appearances are preseived, and vanity remains 
unhurt ; but it is necessary that a man exai7tine himself, 
and that not carelessly. On the contrary, as he advances, 
he should become more and more strict, till he ultimately 
prove a sharper critic to himself than any one else can 
be ; and he ought to intend this, for, so far as he con- 
sciously falls short of it, he acknowledges that others 
may have reason on their side when they criticise him. 
A first result of this habit of mind will be an internal 
conviction of ignorance in many things respecting which 



ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 201 

his iieighboiLrs are tmight, and that his opinions and 
conclusions on such matters ought to be advanced with 
reservation. A mind so disciphned will be open to cor- 
rection, upon good grounds, in all things, even in those it 
is best acquainted with ; and should familiarize itself 
with the idea of such being the case : for though it sees 
no reason to suppose itself in error, yet the possibility- 
exists. The mind is not enfeebled by this internal ad- 
mission, but strengthened ; for, if it cannot distinguish 
proportionately between the probable right and wrong 
of things known imperfectly, it will tend either to be 
rash or to hesitate ; whilst that which admits the due 
amount of probability is likely to be justified in the 
end. It is right that we should stand by and act on our 
principles ; but not right to hold them in obstinate 
blindness, or retain them when proved to be erroneous. 
I remember the time when I believed a spark was pro- 
duced between voltaic metals as they approached to 
contact (and the reasons .why it might be possible yet 
remain) ; but others doubted the fact and denied the 
proofs, and on re-examination I found reason to admit 
their corrections were well founded. Years ago I be- 
lieved that electrolytes could conduct electricity by a 
conduction proper ; that has also been denied by many 
through long time : though I believed myself right, yet 
circumstances have induced me to pay such respect to 
criticism as to reinvestigate the subject, and I have the 
pleasure of thinking that nature confirms my original 
conclusions. So, though evidence may appear to pre- 
ponderate extremely in favour of a certain decision, it is 
wise and proper to hear a counter-statement. You can 
have no idea how often and how much, under such an 
impression, I have desired that the marvellous descrip- 



202 PROFESSOR FARADAY 

tions which have reached me might prove, in some points, 
correct ; and how frequently I have submitted myself 
to hot fires, to friction with magnets, to the passes of 
hands, &c. lest I should be shutting out discovery ; en- 
couraging the strong desire that something might be 
true, and that I might aid in the development of a new 
force of nature. 

Among those points of self-education which take up 
the form of mental discipline^ there is one of great im- 
portance, and, moreover, difficult to deal with, because 
it involves an internal conflict, and equally touches our 
vanity and our ease. It consists in the tendency to deceive 
ourselves regarding all we wish for, and the necessity of 
resistance to these desires. It is impossible for any one 
who has not been constrained, by the course of his occu- 
pation and thoughts, to a habit of continual self-correc- 
tion, to be aware of the amount of erfor in relation to 
judgment arising from this tendency. The force of the 
temptation which urges us to seek for such evidence and 
appearances as are in favour of our desires, and to dis- 
regard those which oppose them, is wonderfully great. 
In this respect we are all, more or less, active pro- 
moters of error. In place of practising wholesome 
self-abnegation, we ever make the wish the father to the 
thought : we receive as friendly that which agrees with, 
we resist with dislike that which opposes us ; whereas 
the very reverse is required by every dictate of common 
sense. Let me illustrate my meaning by a case where 
the proof being easy, the rejection of it under the 
temptation is the more striking. In old times, a ring or 
button mould be tied by a boy to one end of a long 
piece of thread, which he would then hold at the other 
end, letting the button hang within a glass, or over a 



ON THE EDUCATION OF tllE JUDGMENT. 203 

piece of slate-pencil, or sealing-wax, or a nail ; he would 
wait and observe whether the button swung, and whether 
in swinging it tapped the glass as many times as the 
clock struck last, or moved along or across the slate- 
pencil, or in a circle or oval. In late times, parties in 
all ranks of life have renewed and repeated the boy's 
experiment. They have sought to ascertain a very 
simple fact — namely, whether the effect was as reported; 
but how many were unable to do this .'* They were sure 
they could keep their harids immoveable, — were sure 
they could do so whilst watching the result, — were sure 
that accordance of swing with an expected direction was 
not the result of their desires or involuntary motions. 
How easily all these points could be put to the proof by 
not lookhig at the objects, yet how difficult for the experi- 
menter to deny himself that privilege. I have rarely 
found one who would freely permit the substance ex- 
perimented with to be screened from his sight, and then 
its position changed. 

When engaged in the investigation of table-turning, I 
constructed a very simple apparatus, serving as an 
index, to show the unconscious motions of the hands 
upon the table. The results were cither that the index 
moved before the table, or that neither index nor table 
moved ; and in numerous cases all moving power was 
annihilated. A universal objection was made to it by 
the table-turners. It was said to paralyze the powers 
of the mind ; but the experimenters need not see the 
index ; they may leave their friends to watch that, and 
their minds may revel in any power that their expecta- 
tion or their imagination can confer. So restrained, a 
dislike to the trial arises; but v/hat is that, except a 
proof that whilst they trust themselves they doubt 



204 PROFESSOR FARADAY 

themselves, and are not -willing to proceed to the de- 
cision, lest the trust which they like should fail them, 
and the doubt which they dislike rise to the authority 
of truth ? 

Again, in respect of the action of magnets on the 
body, it is almost imposible for an uninstructed person 
to enter profitably upon such an inquiry. He may 
observe any symptom which his expectation has been 
accidentally directed to ; yet be unconscious of any, if 
unaware of his subjection to the magnetic force, or of 
the conditions and manner of its application. 

As a proof of the extent of this influence, even on the 
minds of those well aware of its force, and desirous 
under every circumstance to escape from it, I will men- 
tion the practice of the chemist, who, dealing with the 
balance, that impartial decider which never fails in its 
indication, but offers its evidence with all simplicity, 
durability, and truth, still remembers he should doubt 
himself ; and, with the desire of rendering himself inac- 
cessible to temptation, takes a counterpoised but un- 
known quantity of the substance for analysis, that he 
may remain ignorant of the proportions which he ought 
to obtain, and only at last compares the sum of his 
products with his counterpoise. 

The inclination we exhibit in respect of any report or 
opinion that harmonises with our preconceived notions, 
can only be compared in degree with the incredulity we 
entertain towards everything that opposes them ; and 
these opposite and apparently incompatible, or at least 
inconsistent, conditions are accepted simultaneously in 
the most extraordinary manner. At one moment a 
departure from the laws of nature is admitted without 
the pretence of a careful examination of the proof ; and 



ON THE EDUCAtlON OF THE JUDGMENT. 205 

at the next, the whole force of these laws, acting un- 
devlatingly through all time, is denied, because the 
testimony they give is disliked. 

It is my firm persuasion, that no man can examine 
himself in the most common things, having any reference 
to him personally, or to any person, thought, or matter 
related to him, without being soon made aware of tJie 
temptation and the difficulty of opposing it. I could 
give you many illustrations personal to myself, about 
atmospheric magnetism, lines of force, attraction, repul- 
sion, unity of power, nature of matter, &c. ; or in things 
more general to our common nature, about likes and 
dislikes, wishes, hopes, and fears; but it would be unsuit- 
able, and also unnecessary, for each must be conscious 
of a large field sadly uncultivated in this respect. / 
will simply express my strong belief, that that point of 
sclf-edtication which consists in teaching the mind to re- 
sist its desires and inclinations, until they are proved to 
be right, is the most important of all, not only in things 
of natural philosophy, bnt in every department of daily 
life. 

There are numerous precepts, resulting more or less 
from the principles of mental discipline already insisted 
on as essential, which are very useful in forming a judg- 
ment about matters of fact, whether among natural 
things or between man and man. Such a precept, and 
one that should recur to the mind early in every new 
case is, to knozv the co7iditions of the matter, respecting 
which we are called upon to make a judgment. To 
suppose that any would judge before they professed to 
know the conditions, would seem to be absurd ; on the 
other hand, to assume that the community does wait to 
know the conditions before it judges, is an assumption 



206 tROFESSOR FARADAY 

SO large that I cannot accept it. Very few search out 
the conditions ; most arc anxious to sink those which 
oppose their preconceptions ; yet none can be left out if 
a right judgment is to be formed. It is true that many 
conditions must ever remain unknown to us, even in 
regard to the simplest things in nature : thus, as to the 
wonderful action of gravity, whose law never fails us, 
we cannot say whether the bodies are acting truly at a 
distance, or by a physical line of force as a connecting 
link between them. The great majority think the former 
is the case ; Newton's judgment is for the latter. But 
of the conditions which are within our reach we should 
search out all ; for in relation to those which remain un- 
known or unsuspected, we are in that very ignorance 
(regarding judgment) which it is our present object, first 
to make manifest, and then to remove. 

One exercise of the mind, which largely influences 
the power and character of the judgment, is the habit 
of forming clear and precise ideas. If, after considering 
a subject in our ordinary manner, we return upon it with 
the special purpose of noticing the condition of our 
thoughts, we shall be astonished to find how little precise 
they remain. On recalling the phenomena relating to a 
matter of fact, the circumstances modifying them, the 
kind and amount of action presented, the real or pro- 
bable result, we shall find that the first impressions are 
scarcely fit for the foundation of a judgment, and that 
the second thoughts will be best. For the acquirement 
of a good condition of mind in this respect, the thoughts 
should be trained to a habit of clear and precise forma- 
tion, so that vivid and distinct impressions of the matter 
in hand, its circumstances and consequences, may re- 
main. 



^ ON lilE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 20'/ 

Before we proceed to consider any question involving 
physical principles, we should set out with clear Hdeas of 
the naturally possible and impossible. There are many 
subjects uniting more or less of the most sure and 
valuable investigations of science with the most imagi- 
nary and unprofitable speculation, that are continually 
passing through their various phases of intellectual, ex- 
perimental, or commercial development: some to be 
established, some to disappear, and some to recur again 
and again, like ill weeds that cannot be extirpated, yet 
can be cultivated to no result as wholesome food for the 
mind. Such, for instance, in different degrees, are the 
caloric engine, the electric light, the Pasilalinic sympa- 
thetic compass,* mesmerism, homoeopathy, odylism, the 
magneto-electric engine, the perpetual motion, &c. All 
hear and talk of these things ; all use their judgment 
more or less upon them, and all might do that effectively, 
if they Avere to instruct themselves to the extent which 
is within their reach. I am persuaded that natural 
things offer an admirable school for self-instruction, a 
most varied field for the necessary mental practice, and 
that those who exercise themselves therein may easily 
apply the habits of thought thus formed to a social use. 
As a first step in such practice, clear ideas should be 
obtained of what is possible and what is impossible. 
Thus, it is impossible to create force. We may employ 
it ; we may evoke it in one form by its consumption in 
another; we may hide it for a period ; but we can neither 
create nor destroy it. We may cast it away ; but where 
we dismiss it, there it will do its work. If, therefore, we 
desire to consider a proposition respecting the employ- 
ment or evolution of power, let us carry our judgment, 
*' Sec " Chambers's Journal," 1851, Feb. 15, p. 105. 



208 1»K0FESS0R FAkADAY 

educated on this point, with us. If the proposal include 
the doirble use of a force with only one excitement, it 
implies a creation of power, and that camiot be. If we 
could by the fingers draw a heavy piece of wood of stone 
upward without effort, and then, letting it sink, could 
produce by its gravity an effort equal to its weight, that 
would be a creation of power, and cannot be. 

So again we cannot annihilate matter, nor can we 
create it. But if we are satisfied to rest upon that dogma, 
what are we to think of table-lifting .-' If we could make 
the table to cease from acting by gravity upon the earth 
beneath it, or by reaction upon the hand supposed to 
draw it upwards, we should annihilate it, in respect of 
that very property which characterises it as matter. 

Considerations of this nature are very important aids 
to the judgment ; and when a statement is made claim- 
ing our assent, we should endeavour to reduce it to some 
consequence which can be immediately compared with, 
and tried by, these or like compact and never failing 
truths. If incompatibility appears, then we have reason 
to suspend our conclusion, however attractive to the 
imagination the proposition may be, and pursue the 
inquiry further, until accordance is obtained ; it must be 
a most uneducated and presumptuous mind that can at 
once consent to cast off the tried truth and accept in its 
place the mere loud assertion. We should endeavour to 
separate the points before us, and concentrate each, so 
as to evolve a clear type idea of the ruling fact and 
its consequences ; looking at the matter on every side, 
with the great purpose of distinguishing the constituent 
reality, and recognising it under every variety of aspect. 

In like manner we should accustom ourselves to clear 
and definite language, especially in physical matters, 



ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. lOg 

giving to a word its true and full, but measured mean- 
ing, that we may be able to convey our ideas clearly 
to the minds of others. Two persons cannot mutually 
impart their knowledge, or compare and rectify their 
conclusions, unless both attend to the true intent and 
force of language. If by such words as attraction, elec- 
tricity, polarity, or atom, they imply different things, 
they may discuss facts, deny results, and doubt conse- 
quences for an indefinite time without any advantageous 
progress. I hold it as a great point in self-education-, 
that the student should be continually engaged in form- 
ing exact ideas, and in expressing them clearly by lan- 
guage. Such practice insensibly opposes any tendency 
to exaggeration or mistake, and increases the sense and 
love of truth in every part of life. 

I should be sorry, however, if what I have said were 
understood as meaning that education for the improve- 
ment and strengthening of the judgment is to be alto- 
gether repressive of the imagination, or confine the 
exercise of the mind to processes of a mathematical or 
mechanical character. I believe that, in the pursuit of 
physical science, the imagination should be taught to 
present the subject investigated in all possible, and even 
in impossible views ; to search for analogies of likeness 
and (if I may say so) of opposition — inverse or contrasted 
analogies; to present the fundamental idea in every form, 
proportion, and condition ; to clothe it with suppositions 
and probabilities, that all cases may pass in review, and 
be touched, if needful, by the Ithuriel spear of experi- 
ment. But all this must be under gover7imatt, and the 
result must not be given to society until the judgment, 
educated by the process itself, has been exercised upon 
it. Let us construct our hypotheses for an hour, or a 



2 to Professor farad av 

day, 01* for years ; they are of the utmost value in the 
ehmination of truth, " which is evolved more freely from 
error than from confusion ; " but, above all things, let us 
not cease to be aware of the temptation they offer, or, 
because they gradually become familiar to us, accept 
them as established. We could not reason about elec- 
tricity without thinking of it as a fluid, or a vibration, or 
some other existent state or form. We should give up 
half our advantage in the consideration of heat if we 
refused to consider it as a principle, or a state of motion. 
We could scarcely touch such subjects by experiment, 
and we should make no progress in their practical appli- 
cation, without hypothesis ; still it is absolutely necessary 
that we should learn to doubt the conditions we assume, 
and acknowledge we are uncertain, whether heat and 
electricity are vibrations or substances, or either. 

When the different data required are in our possession, 
and we have succeeded in forming a clear idea of each, 
the mind should be instructed to balance thcnt one 
against another, and not suffered carelessly to hasten 
to a conclusion. This reserve is most essential ; and it 
is especially needful that the reasons which are adverse 
to our expectations or our desires should be carefully 
attended to. We often receive truth from unpleasant 
sources; we often have reason to accept unpalatable 
truths. We are never freely willing to admit infor- 
mation having this unpleasant character, and it requires 
much self-control in this respect, to preserve us, even 
in a moderate degree, from errors. 1 suppose there is 
scarcely one investigator in original research who has 
not felt the temptation to disregard the reasons and 
results which are against his views. I acknowledge that 
I have experienced it very often, and will not pretend 



ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 211 

to say that I have yet learned on all occasions to avoid 
the error. When a bar of bismuth or phosphorus is 
placed between the poles of a powerful magnet, it is 
drawn into a position across the line joining the poles ; 
when only one pole is near the bar, the latter recedes ; 
this and the former effect is due to repulsion, and is 
strikingly in contrast with the attraction shown by iron. 
To account for it, I at one time suggested the idea that 
a polarity was induced in the phosphorus or bismuth 
the reverse of the polarity induced in iron, and that 
opinion is still sustained by eminent philosophers. But 
observe a necessary result of such a supposition, which 
appears to follow when the phenomena are referred to 
elementary principles. Time is shown, by every result 
bearing on the subject, to be concerned in the coming 
on and passing away of the inductive condition produced 
by magnetic force ; and the consequence, as Thomson 
pointed out, is, that if a ball of bismuth could be sus- 
pended between the poles of a magnet, so as to encounter 
no resistance from the surrounding medium, or from 
friction or torsion, and were once put in motion round 
a vertical axis, it would, because of the assumed polar 
state, go on for ever revolving, the parts which at any 
moment are axial moving hke the bar, so as to become 
the next moment equatorial. Now, as we believe the 
mechanical forces of nature tend to bring things into 
a stable, and not into an unstable condition ; as we 
believe that a perpetual motion is impossible ; so, be- 
cause both these points are involved in the notion of the 
reverse polarity, which itself is not supposed to be de- 
pendent on any consumption of power, I feel bound to 
hold the judgment balanced, and therefore hesitate to 
accept a conclusion founded on such a notion of the 



212 PROFESSOR FAR-VDAY 

physical action; the more especially as the peculiar 
test facts* which prov^e the polarity of iron are not 
reproduced in the case of diamagnetic bodies. 

As a result of this wholesome mental condition, we 
should be able to form a proportionate judgment. The 
mind naturally desires to settle upon one thing or 
another ; to rest upon an affirmative or a negative ; 
and that with a degree of absolutism which is irrational 
and improper. In drajving a conclusion, it is very diffi- 
cult, but not the less necessarj*, to make it proportionate 
to the evidence : except where certainty exists (a case 
of rare occurrence), we should consider our decisions as 
probable only. The probabihtj- may appear very great, 
so that in affairs of the world we often accept such as 
certaintj-, and trust our welfare or our Hves upon it 
Still, only an uneducated mind will confound prcJ^bility 
with certaintj'-, especially when it encoimters a contrary 
conclusion dra\\-n by another from like data. This sus- 
pension in degree ql judgment will not make a man 
less active in life, 'or his conclusions less certain as 
truths ; on the contrar\-, I believe him to be the more 
ready for the right amount and direction of action on 
any emergency ; and am sure his conclusions and state- 
ments will carr>' more weight in the world than those 
of the incautious man. 

WTien I was young, I received from one well able to 
aid a learner in his endeavours towards self-improve- 
ment, a curious lesson in the mode of estimating the 
amount of behef one might be induced to attach to our 
conclusions. The person was Dr. Wollaston, who, upon 
a given point, was induced to offer me a wager of two 
to one on the affirmative. I rather impertinently quoted 

• Experimental Researches in Electricity, paragraphs 2,657 — 2,6Sl. 



ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 21 3 

Butler's well-known lines* about the kind of personi 
who use wagers for argument, and he gently explained 
to me, that he ' considered such a wager not as a 
thoughtless thing, but as an expression of the amount 
of belief in the mind of the person offering it ; com- 
bining this curious application of the wager, as a meter, 
with the necessity that ever existed of drawing conclu- 
sions, not absolute, but proportionate to the evidence. 

Occasionally and frequently the exercise of the judg- 
ment ought to end in absolute reservation. It may be 
very distasteful, and great fatigue, to suspend a con- 
clusion; but as we are not infallible, so vv'e ought to be 
cautious : we shall eventually find our advantage, for 
the man who rests in his position is not so far from right 
as he who, proceeding in a wrong direction, is ever in- 
creasing his distance. In the year 1824, Arago dis- 
covered that copper and other bodies placed in the 
vicinity of a magnet, and having no direct action of 
attraction or repulsion upon it, did affect it when moved, 
and were affected by it. A copper plate revolving near 
a magnet carried the magnet with it ; or if the magnet 
revolved, and not the copper, it carried the copper with 
it. A magnetic needle vibrating freely over a disc of 
glass or wood, was exceedingly retarded in its motion 
when these were replaced by a disc of copper. Arago 
stated most clearly all the conditions, and resolved 
the forces into three directions, but not perceiving the 
physical cause of the action, exercised a most wise and 
instructive reservation as to his conclusion. Others, as 
Haldat, considered it as the proof of the universality of 
a magnetism of the ordinary kind, and held to that 

* " Quoth she, ' I've heard old cixnnuig stagers, 
Say fools for arguments use wagers.' " 



214 PROFESSOR FARADAY 

notion though it was contradicted by the further facts ; 
and it was only at a future period that the true physical 
cause, namely, magneto-electric currents induced in 
the copper, became known to us. What an education 
Arago's mind must have received in relation to philo- 
sophical reservation ; what an antithesis he forms with 
the mass of table-turners ; and what a fine example he 
has left us of that condition of judgment to which we 
should strive to attain ! 

If I may give another illustration of the needful 
reservation of judgment, I will quote the case of oxygen 
and hydrogen gases, which, being mixed, will remain 
together uncombined for years in contact with glass, 
but in contact with spongy platinum combine at once. 
We have the same fact in m.any forms, and many 
suggestions have been made as to the mode of action, 
but as yet we do not know clearly how the result comes 
to pass. We cannot tell whether electricity acts or not. 
Then we should suspend our conclusions. Our know- 
ledge of the fact itself, and the many varieties of it, is 
not the less abundant or sure ; and when the truth shall 
hereafter emerge from the mist, we ought to have no 
opposing prejudice, but be prepared to receive it. 

^The education which I advocate will require patience 
a'nd labour of thought in every exercise tending to im- 
prove the judgment. It matters not on what subject a 
person's mind fe occupied, he should engage in it with 
the conviction that it will require mental labour. A 
powerful mind will be able to draw a conclusion more 
readily and more correctly than one of moderate cha- 
racter, but both will surpass themselves if they make 
an earnest, careful investigation, instead of a careless or 
prejudiced one ; and education for this purpose is the 



ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 215 

more necessary for the latter, because the man of less 
ability may, through it, raise his rank and amend his 
position. I earnestly urge this point of self-education, 
for I believe it to be more or less in the power of every 
man greatly to improve his judgment. I do not think 
that one has the complete capacity for judgment which 
another is naturally without. I am of opinion that all 
may judge, and that we only need to declare on every 
side the conviction that mental education is wanting, and 
lead men to see that through it they hold, in a large 
degree, their welfare and their character in their own 
hands, to cause In future years an abundant development 
of right judgment in every class. 

This education has for its first and its last step 
hinnility. It can commence only because of a conviction 
of deficiency ; and if we are not disheartened under the 
growing revelations which it will make, that conviction 
will become stronger unto the end. But the humility 
will be founded, not on comparison of ourselves with 
the imperfect standards around us, but on the increase of 
that internal knowledge which alone can make us aware 
of our internal wants. The first step in correction is to 
learn our deficiencies, and having learned them, the next 
step is almost complete : for no man who has discovered 
that his judgment is hasty, or illogical, or imperfect, 
would go on with the same degree of haste, or irration- 
ality, or presumption as before. I do not mean that all 
would at once be cured of bad mental habits, but 1 
think better of human nature than to believe, that a man, 
in any rank of life, who has arrived at the consciousness 
of such a condition, would deny his common sense, and 
still judge and act as before. And though such self- 
schooling must continue to the end of life to supply an 



2l6 PROFESSOR FARADAY 

experience of deficiency rather than of attainment, still 
there is abundant stimulus to excite any man to perse- 
verance. What he has lost are things imaginary', not 
real; what he gains are riches before unknown to him, 
yet invaluable ; and though he may think more humbly 
of his own character, he will find himself at every step 
of his progress more sought for than before, more trusted 
with responsibility and held in pre-eminence by his 
equals, and more highly valued by those whom he him- 
self will esteem worthy of approbation. 

And now a few words upon the mutual relation of 
two classes, namely, those who decline to educate their 
judgments in regard to the matters on which they 
decide, and those v.ho, by self-education, have endea- 
voured to improve themselves ; and upon the remarkable 
and somewhat unreasonable manner in which the latter 
are called upon, and occasionally taunted, by the former. 
A man who makes assertions, or draws conclusions, re- 
garding any given case, ought to be competent to inves- 
tigate it. He has no right to throw the onus on others, 
declaring it their duty to prove him right or wrong. 
His duty is to demonstrate the truth of that which 
he asserts, or to cease from asserting. The men he calls 
upon to consider and judge have enough to do with 
themselves, in the examination, correction, or verification 
of their own views. The world little knows how many 
of the thoughts and theories which have passed through 
the mind of a scientific investigator have been crushed in 
silence and secrecy by his own severe criticism and ad- 
verse examination ; that in the most successful instances 
not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the wishes, the 
preliminary conclusions hav^e been realized. And is a 
man so occupied to be taken from his search after truth 



ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 21? 

in the path he hopes may lead to its attainment, and 
occupied in vain upon nothing but a broad assertion ? 

Neither has the assertor of any new thing a right to 
claim an answer in the form of Ves or No; or think, 
because none is forthcoming, that he is to be considered 
as having established his assertion. So much is un- 
known to the wisest man, that he may often be without 
an answer ; as frequently he is so, because the subject is 
in the region of hypothesis, and not of facts. In either 
case he has the right to refuse to speak. I cannot tell 
whether there are two fluids of electricity or any fluid 
at all. I am not bound to explain how a table tilts any 
more than to indicate how, under the conjuror's hands, a 
pudding appears in a hat. The means are not known to 
me. I am persuaded that the results, however strange 
they may appear, are in accordance with that which is 
truly known, and if carefully investigated would justify 
the well-tried laws of nature ; but, as life is limited, I 
am not disposed to occupy the time it is made of in the 
investigation of matters which, in what is known to me 
of them, offer no reasonable prospect of any useful pro- 
gress, or anything but negative results. We deny the 
right of those who call upon us to answer their specu- 
lations " if we can" whilst we have so many of our 
own to develop and correct; and claim the right for 
ourselves of withholding either our conclusions or the 
reasons for them, without in the least degree admitting 
that their affirmations are unanswerable. We are not 
even called upon to give an answer to the best of our 
belief : nor bound to admit a bold assertion because we 
do not kno-d) to the contrary. No one is justified in 
claiming our assent to the spontaneous generation of 

insects, because we cannot'circumstantially explain how 
11 



21 8 PROFESSOR FARADAY 

a mite or the egg of a mite has entered into a particular 
bottle. Let those who affirm the exception to the 
general law of nature, or those others who upon the 
affirmation accept the result, work out the experimental 
proof. It has been done in this case by Schulze, and is 
in the negative ; but how few among the many who 
make, or repeat, the assertion, would have the requisite 
self-abnegation, the subjected judgment, the persever- 
ance, and the precision which has been displayed in that 
research. 

" When men, more or less marked by their advance, are 
led by circumstances to give an opinion adverse to any 
popular notion, or to the assertions of any sanguine 
inventor, nothing is more usual than the attempt to 
neutralize the force of such an opinion by reference to 
the mistakes which like educated men have made ; and 
their occasional misjudgments and erroneous conclusions 
are quoted, as if they were less competent than others 
to give an opinion, being even disabled from judging 
like matters to those which are included in their pur- 
suits by the very exercise of their minds upon them. 
How frequently has the reported judgment of Davy, 
upon the impossibility of gas-lighting on a large scale, 
been quoted by speculators engaged in tempting monied 
men into companies, or in the pages of journals occupied 
with the popular fancies of the day ; as if an argument 
were derivable from that in favour of some special object 
to be commended. Why should not men taught in 
the matter of judgment far beyond their neighbours, be 
expected to err sometimes, since the verj'- education in 
which they are advanced can only terminate with their 
lives } What is there about them, derived from this 
education, which sets up the shadow of a pretence to 



ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 219 

perfection ? Such men cannot learn all things, and may 
often be ignorant. The very progress which science 
makes amongst them as a body is a continual correction 
of ignorance — i.e. of a state which is ignorance in re- 
lation to the future, though wisdom and knowledge in 
relation to the past. In 1823, Wollaston discovered 
that beautiful substance which he called Titanium, 
believing it to be a simple metal : and it was so ac- 
cepted by all philosophers. Yet this was a mistake, for 
Wohler, in 1850, showed the substance was a very com- 
pound body. This is no reproach to Wollaston or to 
those who trusted in him ; he made a step in metallurgy 
which advanced knowledge, and perhaps we may here- 
after, through it, learn to know that metals are com- 
pound bodies. Who, then, has a right to quote his 
mistake as a reproach against him ? Who could cor- 
rect him but men intellectually educated as he himself 
was 1 Who does not feel that the investigation remains 
a bright gem in the circlet that memory offers to his 
honour ? 

If we are to estimate the utility of an educated judg- 
ment, do not let us hear merely of the errors of scientific 
men, which have been corrected by others taught in the 
same careful school ; but let us see what, as a body, 
they have produced, compared with that supplied by 
their reproachers. Where are the established truths 
and triumphs of ring-swingers, table-turners, table- 
speakers .-' What one result in the numerous divisions 
of science or its applications can be traced to their 
exertions ? Where is the investigation completed, so 
that, as in gas-lighting, all may admit that the principles 
are established and a good end obtained, without the 
shadow of a doubt .'' 



220 ■ PROFESSOR FARADAY 

If we look to electricity, it, in the hands of the care- 
ful investigator, has advanced to the most extraordinary- 
results : it approaches at the motion of his hand ; bursts 
from the metal; descends from the atmosphere; sur- 
rounds the globe : it talks, it writes, it records, it appears 
to him (cautious as he has learned to become) as a uni- 
versal spirit in nature. If we look to photography, 
whose origin is of our own day, and see what it has 
become in the hands of its discoverers and their suc- 
cessors, how wonderful are the results ! The light is 
made to yield impressions upon the dead silver or the 
coarse paper, beautiful as those it produced upon the 
living and sentient retina : its most transient impression 
is rendered durable for years ; it is made to leave a 
visible or an invisible trace ; to give a result to be seen 
now or a year hence ; made to paint all natural forms 
and even colours ; it serves the oiiEices of war, of peace, 
of art, science, and economy : it replaces even the mind 
of the human being in some of its lower services ; for a 
little camphine lamp is set down and left to itself, to 
perform the duty of watching the changes of magnetism, 
heat, and other forces of nature, and to record the results, 
in pictorial curves, which supply an enduring record of 
their most transitory actions. 

What has clairvoyance, or mesmerism, or table-rapping 
done in comparison with results like these ? What have 
the snails at Paris told us from the snails at New York ? 
What have any of these intelligences done in aiding 
such developments } Why did they not inform us of 
the possibility of photography ; or, when that became 
known, why did they not favour us with some instruc- 
tions for its improvement ? They all profess to deal 
with acrencics far more exalted in character than an 



ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 221 

electric current or a ray of light : they also deal with 
mechanical forces ; they employ both the bodily organs 
and the mental ; they profess to lift a table, to turn a 
hat, to see into a box, or into the next room, or a town : 
— why should they not move a balance, and so give us 
the element of a new mechanical, power ? take cognizance 
of a bottle and its contents, and tell us how they will act 
upon those of a neighbouring bottle ? either see or feel 
into a crystal, and inform us of what it is composed ? 
Why have they not added one metal to the fifty known 
to mankind, or one planet to the number daily increasing 
under the observant eye of the astronomer ? Why have 
they iM)t corrected one of the mistakes of the philo- 
sophers ? There are no doubt very many that require it. 
There has been plenty of time for the development and 
maturation of some of the numerous public pretences 
that have risen up in connexion with these supposed 
agencies; how is it that not one new power has been 
added t6 the means of investigation employed by the 
philosophers, or one valuable utilitarian application pre- 
sented to society .'' 

In conclusion, I will freely acknowledge that all I 
have said regarding the great want of judgment mani- 
fested by society as a body, and the high value of any 
means which would tend to supply the deficiency, have 
been developed and declared on numerous occasions, 
by authority far above any I possess. The deficiency 
is known hypothetically, but I doubt if in reality ; the 
individual acknowledges the state in respect of others, 
but is unconscious of it in regard to himself. As to the 
world at large, the condition is accepted as a necessary 
fact; and so it is left untouched, almost ignored. I 
think that education in a large sense should be applied 



222 PROFESSOR FARADAY 

to this state of the subject, and that society, though it 
can do little in the way of communicated experience, 
can do much, by a declaration of the evil that exists and 
of its remediable character; by keeping alive a sense 
of the deficiency to be supplied ; and by directing the 
minds of men to the practice and enlargement of that 
self-education which every one pursues more or less, but 
which, under conviction and method, would produce a 
tenfold amount of good. I know that the multitude will 
always be behindhand in this education, and to a far 
greater extent than in respect of the education which 
is founded on book learning. Whatever advance books 
make, they retain ; but each new being comes on to the 
stage of life, with the same average amount of conceit, 
desires, and passions, as his predecessors, and in respect 
of self-education has all to learn. Does the circum- 
stance that we can do little more than proclaim the 
necessity of instruction justify the ignorance ? or our 
silence .-' or make the plea for this education less strong ? 
Should it not, on the contrary, gain its strength from 
the fact that all are wanting more or less } I desire we 
should admit that, as a body, we are universally de- 
ficient in judgment. I do not mean that we are utterly 
ignorant, but that we have advanced only a little way in 
the requisite education, compared with what is within 
our power. 

If the necessity of the education of the judgment were 
a familiar and habitual idea with the public, it would 
often afford a sufficient answer to the statement of an 
ill-informed or incompetent person ; if quoted to recall 
to his remembrance the necessity of a mind instructed 
in a matter, and accustomed to balance evidence, it 
might frequently be in answer to the individual himself. 



ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 223 

Adverse influence might, and would, arise from the care- 
less, the confident, the presumptuous, the hasty, and the 
dilatory man, perhaps extreme opposition ; but I believe 
that the mere acknowledgment and proclamation of the 
ignorance, by society at large, would, through its moral 
influence, destroy the opposition, and be a great means 
to the attainment of the good end desired : for if no 
more be done than to lead such to turn their thoughts 
inwards, a step in education is gained : if they are con- 
vinced in any degree, an important advance is made ; if 
they learn only to suspend their judgment, the improve- 
ment will be one above price. 

It is an extraordinary thing that man, with a mind so 
wonderful that there is nothing to compare with it else- 
where in the known creation, should leave it to run wild 
in respect of its highest elements and qualities. He has 
a power of comparison and judgment, by which his final 
resolves, and all those acts of his material system which 
distinguish him from the brutes, are guided : shall he 
omit to educate and improve them when education can 
do much ? Is it towards the very principles and pri- 
vileges that distinguish him above other creatures, he 
.should feel indifference ? Because the education is in- 
ternal, it is not the less needful ; nor is it more the duty 
of a man that he should cause his child to be taught 
than that he should teach himself Indolence may 
tempt him to neglect the self-examination- and expe- 
rience which form his school, and weariness may induce 
the evasion of the necessary .practices ; but surely a 
thought of the prize should suffice to stimulate him to 
the requisite exertion : and to those who reflect upon 
the many hours and days, devoted by a lover of sweet 
sounds, to gain a moderate facility upon a mere mc- 



224 ON THE EDUCATION OF THE JUDGMENT. 

chanical instrument, it ought to bring a correcting blush 
of shame, if they feel convicted of neglecting the beau- 
tiful living instrument, wherein play all the powers of 
the mind. 

I will conclude this subject ; — believe me when I say 
I have been speaking from 5elf-conviction, I did not 
think this an occasion on which I ought to seek for 
flattering words regarding our common nature; if so, I 
should have felt unfaithful to the trust I had taken up ; 
so I have spoken from experience. In thought I hear 
the voice, which judges me by the precepts I have 
uttered. I know that I fail frequently in that very 
exercise of judgment to which I call others ; and have 
abundant reason to believe that much more frequently 
I stand manifest to those around me as one who errs, 
without being corrected by knowing it. I would will- 
ingly have evaded appearing before you on this subject, 
for I shall probably do but little good, and may well 
think it was an error 'of judgment to consent: having 
consented, my thoughts would flow back amongst the 
events and reflections of my past life, until I found 
nothing present itself but an open declaration, almost 
a confession, as the means of performing the duty due 
to the subject and to you. 



ON THE INFLUENCE 

OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE UPON 

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 



A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION 
OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



BY 

WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., F.R.S. 



ON THE 
SCIENTIFIC HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 



The managers of the Royal Institution having deter- 
mined to provide for their members and others a series 
of Lectures upon Education, and having expressed their 
wish that I should offer to the audience here assembled 
any views which may appear to me suited to such a 
purpose, I venture to do so, relying upon an indulgence 
which I have more than once experienced here on simi- 
lar occasions. Of such indulgence I strongly feel the 
need, on various accounts, but especially on these two — 
first, that being so unfrequently in this metropolis, I do 
not knov/ what trains of thought are passing in the 
minds of the greater part of my audience, who live in 
the midst of a stimulation produced by the lively inter- 
change of opinion and discussion on the prominent 
questions of the day, to one of which what I have now 
to say in a great degree refers ; and next, that in this 
hall, where you are accustomed to listen to the most 
lively explanations of scientific discoveries, illustrated by 
the most skilful and striking experiments, / have to pre- 
sent to you a series of remarks on subjects more or less 
abstract and vague, without being able to aid my expo- 
sition by anything addressed to the eye. The pictures 
which words can give of abstruse and s^eneral mental 



228 DR. WIIEWELL ON THE 

conceptions, when they alone form a diorama on which 
the mental eye of an assembly is to be directed for a 
whole hour, always appear to me to be in great danger 
of fading away into a dream of cloudland or a vacant 
blank. However, as to that point, I have an advantage 
in speaking on the History of Science, which is my 
present subject, in this room. To those of you who are 
in the habit of coming here, the walls must appear, from 
their customary aspect, to be hung with pictures which 
illustrate my theme. The striking facts in the history of 
.science which you have presented to you in this place, 
week after week, arc illustrations, in particular cases, of 
the general views which I have to offer to you ; and if 
such expressions as experience and tJicory, discovery and 
generalization, Baconian ascents to comprehensive axioms, 
and descents thence to wonderful works — if such expres- 
sions be in danger of being to others vague and empty 
sounds, to yoii, they will be, I may trust, all enlivened 
and embodied by what you have again and again seen 
here. 

The subject on which I am desirous of making a few 
remarks to you at present is this : TJie Injlnenee of 
Scientific Discovery upon Intellectual Education: — the 
influence of the scientific discoveries of any period upon 
the intellectual education of the succeeding period : the 
influence, that is, of the intellectual achievements of one 
or two gifted men, at various epochs of the world's his- 
tory, upon all those persons, in the next succeeding 
generations, who have aimed to obtain, for themselves or 
for their children, the highest culture, the best discipline, 
of which man's intellectual faculties are capable. I wish 
to show that there has been such an influence, and that 
it has been great at all periods ; that is, at all those 



SCIENTIFIC HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 229 

periods of intellectual energy and activity which come 
within the conditions of the terms ; — all periods which 
have been periods of discovery. I wish to show that this 
influence has been so great, that its results constitute, at 
this day, the whole of our intellectual education ; — that 
in virtue of this influence, intellectual education has been, 
for those who avail themselves of the means which time 
has accumulated, progressive ; — that our intellectual edu- 
cation now, to be worthy of the time, ought to include 
in its compass elements contributed to it in every one of 
the great epochs of mental energy which the world has 
seen ; — that in this respect, most especially, we are, if 
we know how to use our advantages, inheritors of the 
wealth of all the richest' times ; strong in the power of 
the giants of all ages ; placed on the summit of an 
edifice which thirty centuries have been employed in 
building. 

Perhaps I shall most simply make myself intelligible 
by stating plainly and frankly a proposition which I wish 
to illustrate by various examples, as it has been exem- 
plified in various ages and countries. The proposition is 
this : That every great advance in intellectual education 
has been the effect of some considerable scientific dis- 
covery, or group of discoveries. Every improvement of 
the mental discipline of those who stand in the forefront 
of humanity has followed some signal victory of their 
leaders; every addition to the means of intellectual 
culture has been the result of some extraordinary har- 
vest,^ some more than ordinary bounty of the intellectual 
soil, bestowed on the preceding years. 

Without further preface, let us proceed to examples. 
The first great attempt made for the improvement of 
intellectual education, so far as history tells us, was that 



230 DR. WHEWELL ON THE 

undertaken and prosecuted with persevering vigour by 
Socrates and Plato. The aim of those philosophers was, 
I say, mainly and peculiarly, an improvement of the 
intellectual education of their countrymen. The Athe- 
nians of that time, — I mean, the more eminent and 
affluent classes of them, — had already an education in 
a very considerable degree elaborate, and large and 
elevated in its promises. The persons by whom this 
education was, in its higher departments, conducted — 
the teachers whom Socrates and Plato perseveringly 
opposed — have been habitually called iJie Sophists; 
because, though at the time their ascendancy Avas 
immense, in the course of ages Plato's writings have 
superseded theirs, and he so describes them. But it has 
been shown recently, in the most luminous and striking 
manner, by one among ourselves, that the education 
which these teachers professed to give, and frequently 
gave, was precisely what we commonly mean by a good 
education. It was an education enabling a young man 
to write well, speak well, and act efficiently, on all ordi- 
nary occasions, public and private. The moral doctrines 
which they taught, even according to the most unfa- 
vourable representation of them, were no worse than 
the moral doctrines which are most commonly taught 
among ourselves at the present day, — the morality 
founded upon utility; but many of them repudiated this 
doctrine as sordid and narrow, and professed higher 
principles, which they delivered in graceful literary forms, 
some of which are still extant in the books which wc put 
in the hands of the young. 

Such were the Sophists, against v.'hom Socrates and 
Plato carried on their warfare. And why did Socrates 
and Plato contend against these teachers ; and how was 



SCIENTIFIC HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 23 1 

it that they contended so successfully, that the sympathy 
of all posterity has been with them in their opposition ? 
It was because Socrates and Plato sought for solid prin- 
ciples in this specious teaching, and found none. It was 
because, while these professors of speaking well and 
acting well imparted their precepts to their pupils, and 
exemplified them by their practice, they could not bear 
the keen cross-questioning of Socrates, when he tried to 
make them tell what it was to speak WELL, and to act 
WELL ; they could not tell Plato what was that " First 
Good, First Perfect, and First Fair," from which every- 
thing else derived goodness, beauty, and perfection. 
Socrates and Plato were not content with illustrations, 
they asked for principles ; they were not content with 
rhetoric, they wanted demonstration : it was not enough 
for them that these men taught the young Athenian to 
persuade others, they wanted to have him knoiv, and to 
know ivJiat he kneiv. These were the demands, as you 
will many of you recollect, that recur again and again 
in the Platonic Dialogues. This is the tendency of 
all the trains of irresistible logic which are put in the 
mouth of Plato's imaginary Socrates. What do we 
know ? How do we know it ? By what reasoning ? From 
whdit principles ? These questions are perpetually asked. 
They are never completely answered. The respondent 
always breaks down at some point or other ; and then 
Socrates says, with his calm irony, " How disappoint- 
ing ! How vexatious ! We are where we were ! We 
must begin again. Wc have not yet found what we 
were seeking. We have not yet got hold of the real 
and essential truth." 

And what was it that had put Socrates and Plato 
upon this eager and obstinate search of a real and 



232 DR. WHEWELL ON THE 

essential truth ? How was it they could not be satisfied 
without it ? Why might not that which had been 
taught by the wise and eloquent men of previous gene- 
rations suffice for their generation ? Why must their 
inquiries go further than the inquiries of their ancestors 
had done ? This real and essential truth which they 
sought, what had put the notion of it into their heads ? 
What had made them think that such a thing could be 
found ? Had they seen any example of such truth ; 
had they seen any specimen of this treasure, which they 
sought for with so vehement and persevering a quest ? 

Yes: for this is the point to which I Avish to draw 
your attention ; they Jiad seen specimens of this trea- 
sure. They had had placed before them examples of 
real and certain truth ; they had been admitted to con- 
template ■ clear and indisputable truths ; truths which 
they could demonstrate to be true ; truths which they 
could trace to principles of intuitive evidence ; truths 
which it did not appear to be speaking too highly of, 
if they called them necessary and- eternal. 

Such truths they had already seen and known ; for 
they had known some of the truths of geometry. No 
doubt some of these truths, — the truths of geometry, — 
some casual and happy guesses — had been known at a 
much earlier period. Pythagoras had known that the 
squares on the two sides of a right-angled triangle arc 
equal to the square on the third. But the lore of 
Pythagoras, imparted in a mysterious manner to an 
initiated few, had long crept stealthily among the secret 
societies of the Italian coast, and hardly made its way, 
in any considerable degree, into Greece, till it was intro- 
duced by Plato and his friends. But the age of Plato 
was an age of great geometrical discovery in Greece. 



SCIENTIFIC HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 233 

The general body of geometry, such as it exists to this 
day, was then constructed. Plato himself was an 
eminent geometer, not only by geometrical discoveries 
which he made, but still more by his clear and strong 
perception of the importance of the study. He repeat- 
edly exhorts his fellow-countrymen to pursue this study ; 
he promises that it shall lead them to a true view of the 
heavens ; he discerns how this is to be done ; he points 
out new branches of mathematical science which must 
be constructed for this purpose ; he repeatedly refers to 
the Definitions, the Axioms, the Proofs of Geometrical 
Propositions ; he writes over the gate of the gardens of 
Academus, where his disciples meet to listen to his 
teaching — OuSet? d<yeo/jieTpt]TO<i elaiTOJ. "Let no one 
enter who is destitute of Geometry." 

And why this requirement ? Why this prohibition ? 
What was the need of Geometry for his disciples ? 
What use was he to make of it .'' What inference was 
he to draw from it when they had it ? 

Precisely the inference which I have mentioned ; — that 
there was a certain and solid truth ; a knowledge which 
was not mere opinion ; science which was more than 
seeming : that man has powers by which such truth, 
such knowledge, such science, may be acquired ; that 
therefore it ought to be sought, not in geometry alone, 
but in other subjects also; that since man can know, 
certainly and clearly, about straight and curved in the 
world of space, he ought to know, — he ought not to be 
content without knowing, — no less clearly and certainly, 
about right and wrong in the world of human action. 
That man has such powers, was the beginning of Plato's 
philosophy. To use them for such purposes was the 
constant aim of his mental activity. The impression 



234 DR. WHEWELL ON THE 

which had been left upon his mind by the geometrical 
achievements of his contemporaries, and by those which 
he himself began, was, that the powers by which such 
discoveries are made are evidences of the exalted nature 
of the human mind ; of its vast profundity ; of its lofty 
destiny. He repeatedly, and with obvious gratification, 
refers to geometrical truths as evidences of the nature 
of the human mind, and even of its hope of immortality. 
Since the mind can thus reason to certain truths, it must 
have in it the principles of truth ; and whence did it 
derive them ? Since it can know what it has not learned 
from the senses, it must have some otJier source of know- 
ledge ; and how much is implied in this ! Since it can 
conceive and bring forth eternal truths, how can it be 
the child of a day, a transient creature, born one moment 
and perishing the next ? 

Perhaps it may serve to add distinctness to the ac- 
count I am trying to give you of Plato's teaching, if I 
give you, in his own way, an example of this teaching 
of his. It shall be very brief In Plato's Dialogue, 
called Meno, Socrates, in discourse with Meno the Thes- 
salian, is trying to discover what Virtue is : and pressing 
his inquiry from point to point, and finding the truth 
perpetually escape him, he is led to ask, at last, " What 
is meant by discovering anything ? Can we do it .-* If 
so, how ? " And on this, with more of direct assertion 
than he commonly ventures upon, he declares that wc 
can do it, and that he will show how we do it. He calls 
up a young and intelligent boy, an attendant of Meno, 
and he propounds to him a geometrical problem, simple, 
yet not quite obvious. He draws a diagram in the sand, 
and asks him various questions as to the lines which 
serve to illustrate this problem ; and the boy, though at 



SCIENTIFIC HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 235 

first he says he does not know, is soon led to answer 
rightly to these interrogations, by his natural apprehen- 
sion of the relations of space. At every step, Socrates 
says, "You see I tell him nothing. He goes on towards 
the truth, but I do not teach him. He finds it in his 
own mind. He does not learn from another, he recollects 
what he has already known. His knowledge is recollec- 
tion. His science is reminiscence." 

This doctrine — that knowledge is recollection, that 
science is reminiscence — is the main result deduced in 
the Meno from this geometrical investigation. In that 
Dialogue, as I have said, the doctrine is applied to illus- 
trate the nature of the discovery of truth in general. 
In the Phedo — that Dialogue which has so deeply moved 
thoughtful men in every age, in which Socrates, standing 
before the gates of death, reasons with his weeping 
friends as to what he shall find beyond them — this same 
doctrine is employed to warm their hopes and elevate 
their thoughts. Since, it is argued, the soul thus contains 
in itself the principles of eternal truth, it must be itself 
eternal. But it is not with this purpose that I here refer 
to the use thus made of geometrical reasoning. My 
object is to establish this view : — that the great step in 
pure scientific discovery, made by the Greeks of Plato's 
time, — the construction of a connected and comprehen- 
sive body of geometrical truths, led to the conviction 
that geometry was an immensely valuable element in 
intellectual education. The apprehensions of such truths 
threw a new light upon the nature of all truth, and the 
means of attaining to it. It was seen that, thenceforth, 
they who were altogether ignorant of geometry, were 
destitute of the best means then known, of showing 
them what is the genuine aspect of essential truth, — 



236 DR. WHEWELL ON THE 

what is the nature of the intellectual vision by which it 
is seen, — what is the consciousness of intuitive power on 
which its foundations rest. And thus, in virtue of the 
geometrical discoveries of the Platonic epoch, geometiy 
became a part of the discipline of the Platonic school ; — 
became the starting point of the Platonic reformation of 
the intellectual education of Athens; — became an ele- 
ment of a liberal education. And not only became so 
then, but has continued so to this day: so that among 
ourselves, and in every other country of high cultivation, 
no education is held to be raised on good foundations 
which does not include geometry, — elementary geometry, 
at least, — among its component portions. And thus, in 
our Education, as in our Science, the completest form, 
in the latest time, includes and assumes the earhest steps 
of real progress : and this is so, in the one case as in the 
other, because the one must always depend on the other ; 
because the progress of Education is affected, at every 
great and principal step, by the progress of Science. 

You will not be surprised to be thus told that our 
modern education has derived something from the 
ancient Greek education, because you know that our 
modern science has derived much from the ancient 
Greek science. You know that our science, in the 
ordinary sense of the term, has derived little from the 
ancient Romans ;— little, that is, which is original ; and 
therefore you will not be surprised, if our education have 
derived little from the Roman education. If the fact 
were so, it would still be a negative illustration of the 
doctrine which I am trying to elucidate ; the dependence 
of the progress of education on the progress of science. 
]3ut if we take the term science in a somewhat wider 
acceptation, wc shall derive from the Roman history. 



SCIENTIFIC HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 237 

not a negative, but 2. positive exemplification of our pro- 
position. For in that wider sense, there is a science of 
which Rome was the mother, as Greece was of geometry 
and mathematics. The term Science may be extended 
so widely, as to allow us to speak of the Science of Law 
— meaning the doctrine of Rights and Obligations, in 
its most definite and yet most comprehensive form ; — in 
short, the Science of Jurisprudence. In this science, 
the Romans were really great discoverers ; or rather, it 
was they who made the subject a science, — who gave it 
the precision of a science, the generality of a science, 
the method of a science. And how. effectually they did 
this we may judge, from the fact that the jurisprudence 
of Rome is still the basis, the model, the guide, the core 
of the jurisprudence of every civilized country ; of our 
own less than most, but still, in no small degree, of our 
own. The imitators and pupils of the Greeks in every 
other department of human speculation, in jurisprudence 
the Romans felt themselves their masters. Cicero says, 
proudly, but not too proudly, that a single page of a 
Roman jurist contained more solid and exact matter 
than a whole library of Greek philosophers. The labours 
of jurists deserving this character, which thus began 
before Cicero, continued through the empire, to its fall ; 
— continued even beyond its fall. As Horace tells us 
that captive Greece captived the conqueror and taught 
him arts ; so Rome subdued, subdued the victor hordes, 
and taught them law. The laws of Rome gave method 
to the codes of the northern nations, and are the origin 
of much that is most scientific in the more recent sys- 
tems of legislation. That general law is a science, we 
owe to the Romans; and we: in England may be re- 
minded of this, by our inability to translate the Roman 



238 DR. WHEWELL ON THE 

word by which this science is described : for though the 
term, Jtis, is the root oi jurist, d^nd jurisprtidence, and 
the Hke, it is, as yet, hardly naturahzed in its technical 
sense, as designating the general Doctrine of Rights and 
Obligations; nor have we any word which has that 
meaning, as Droit has in French, and Recht in German. 
Here is a great science, then, of which the discoverers 
were the Romans : can we trace, as according to our 
view we ought to be able to trace, any corresponding 
great step in intellectual discipline ? Was jus a pro- 
minent part of Roman education } Is Roman juris- 
prudence a prominent part in the liberal education in 
modern times ? To both these questions we must answer 
most emphatically. Yes. The law of Rome was the main 
part of the education of the Roman youth. Cicero re- 
minds his brother Quintius, that they had learnt the old 
laws, and the formulae of legal proceedings, by heart, as 
a sort of domestic catechism or nursery rhyme. Every 
Roman of eminence spent the early part of his morning 
in giving legal opinions to his clients : — not like our 
Justice of the Peace, when appealed to as a magis- 
trate, but as an adviser and protector ; and every young 
member of the aristocracy had to lit himself for this 
office. Every young Roman of condition was a Roman 
jurist. And the study of the law, thus made a leading 
branch of a liberal education, continued so through the 
middle ages — continues so still. It occupied the great 
Italian universities — Bologna, Pisa, Padua, and the like 
— in the darkest part of the dark ages. It occupies 
most of the universities of Europe to this day. The 
Roman law is still the main element of the liberal edu- 
cation of Italy, of Germany, of Greece, and, in some 
degree, even of France and Spain. In Germany its 



SCIENTIFIC HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 239 

prevalence has been such, that in recent times all the 
great moral controversies have been debated in the 
most strenuous and searching manner /;/ terms of the 
Civil Laiv, as the Roman law is still called all over 
Europe. And we shall hardly doubt, if we look into the 
matter, that these legal studies have given to the well- 
educated men of those countries a precision of thought, 
and an exactness of logic on moral subjects, which, 
without such a study, would not have been likely to 
prevail. To define a Right or Obligation, to use proper 
terms in framing a law, in delivering a judicial sentence, 
in giving a legal opinion, is precisely the merit of an ac- 
complished jurist ; as is emphatically asserted by Cicero. 
And even our own law, fragmentary and unscientific as 
it is, is not without a value of the same kind, as an 
instrument of a liberal education. It may be a means 
of giving exactness to the thoughts, method and clear- 
ness to the reasoning, precision to the expressions of 
men, on the general interests of man and of society ; 
and is so recommended, and often so employed, by those 
who are preparing for active life. Of the moral sciences, 
without some study of which no education can be com- 
plete, the science of jurisprudence is most truly a science, 
and most effectually a means of intellectual discipline. 
And, as you see, the use of such discipline in education 
dates from the period of that great advance in specu- 
lation on moral subjects and social relations, by which 
jurisprudence became a science. 

And thus two of the great elements of a thorough 
intellectual culture, Mathematics and Jurisprudence, are 
an inheritance which we derive from ages long gone by 
from two great nations — from the two great nations of 
antiquity. They are the results of ancient triumphs of 



240 DR WHEWELL ON THE 

man's spirit over the confusion and obscurity of the 
aspects of the external world ; and even over the way- 
wardness and unregulated impulses of his own nature, 
and the entanglements and conflicts of human society. 
And being true sciences, they were well fitted to become, 
as they became, and were fitted to continue, as they 
have hitherto continued, to be main elements in that 
discipline by which man is to raise himself above him- 
self; is to raise — since that is especially what we have 
now to consider — ^his intellect info an habitual condition, 
superior to the rudeness, dimness, confusion, laxity^ .in- 
security, to which the undisciplined 'wa^vXsts of human 
thought in all ages and nations commonly lead.. 

And before we proceed any further, let us consider, 
for an instant, that such an education, consisting of the 
elements which I have mentioned, might be, and would 
be, in well conducted cases, an education of no common 
excellence, even according to our present standard of 
a good intellectual education. A mind well disciplined 
in elementary geometry and in general jurisprudence, 
would be as well prepared as mere discipline can make 
a mind, for most trains of human speculation and rea- 
soning. The mathematical portion of such an education 
would give clear habits of logical deduction, and a per- 
ception of the delight of demonstration ; while the moral 
portion of the education, as we may call jurisprudence, 
would guard the mind from the defect, sometimes 
ascribed to mere mathematicians, of seeing none but 
mathematical proofs, and applying to all cases mathe- 
matical processes. A young man well imbued with 
these, the leading elements of Athenian and Roman 
culture, would, we nee'd not fear to say, be superior in 
intellectual discipline to three-fourths of flic young men 



SCIENTIFIC HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 241 

of our own day, on whom all the ordinary appliances of 
w^hat is called a good education have been bestowed. 
Geometer and jurist, the pupil formed by this culture of 
the old world might make no bad figure among the men 
of letters or of science, the lawyers and the politicians, 
of our own times. 

But there is another remark which I must make, 
tending to show the defect of this education of anti- 
quity, as compared with the intellectual education of 
our own times ; or rather, as compared with what the 
education of our own times ought to be. The subjects 
which I have mentioned, geometry and jurisprudence, 
are both deductive sciences ; — sciences in which, from 
certain first principles, by chains of proof, conclusions 
are deduced which 'constitute the doctrines of the 
science. In the one case, geometry, these first prin- 
ciples are given by intuition ; in the other, jurisprudence, 
they are either rules instituted by authority and con- 
sent, or general principles of human nature and human 
society, obtained from experience interpreted by our 
own human consciousness. We deduce propertiesAof 
diagrams from geometrical axioms ; we deduce decisions 
of cases from legal maxims. Jurisprudence, no less than 
geometry, is a deductive science ; and has been compared 
with geometry, by its admirers, for the exactness of its 
deductive processes. They have said (Leibnitz and 
others) that jural demonstrations are as fine examples 
of logic as mathematical ; and that pure reason alone 
determines every expression of a good jurist, no less 
than of a good mathematician ; so that there is no room 
for that play of individual character, which shows itself 
in the difference of style of different authors. But 
hov/ever perfectly the habits of deduction may be taught 
12 



242 DR. WHEWELL ON THE 

by these studies, such teaching cannot, according to the 
enlarged views of modern times, compose a complete 
intellectual culture. Induction, rather than deduction, 
is the source of the great scientific truths which form 
the glory, and fasten on them the admiration of modern 
times; and a modern education cannot "be regarded as 
giving to the intellect that culture, which the fulness of 
time, and the treasures of knowledge now accumulated, 
render suitable and necessary, except it convey to the 
mind an adequate appreciation of and familiarity with 
the inductive process, by which those treasures of 
knowledge have been obtained. As the best sciences 
which the ancient world framed supplied the best 
elements of intellectual education up to modern times ; 
so the grand step by which, in modern times, science has 
sprung up into a magnitude and majesty far superior to 
her ancient dimensions, should exercise its influence upon 
modern education, and contribute its proper result to 
modern intellectual culture. 

Who is to be taken as the representative of the great 
epoch of the progress of science in modern times ; that 
is, beginning from the sixteenth century ? In different 
ways, ^Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, Newton, may seem best 
suited to occupy that position. But Galileo's immediate 
influence was limited, both as to subjects and as to the 
number of admirers. It was when Descartes summed 
up into a system the discoveries of Galileo and his dis- 
ciples, and added to them inventions of his own, some 
true, many captivating, that the new physical philosophy 
acquired a large and vigorous hold upon Europe north 
of the Alps. In France especially, always eager in its 
admiration of intellectual greatness, Descartes Avas un- 
hesitatingly regarded as the great man who brought in a 



SCIENTIFIC HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 243 

new and more enlightened age of philosophy. Indeed, 
for a large portion of philosophy, he is still so regarded 
by French philosophers; and though his influence in 
metaphysics is to be distinguished ffom his authority in 
physics, still the ascendancy of his more abstract and 
general philosophical opinions was closely connected 
with his recognised eminence as a physical philosopher, 
and with the admiration which his system of the 
universe obtained. The Cartesian philosophy was the 
proclaimed and acknowledged antagonist of the Aristo- 
telian philosophy ; it was the new truth of which the 
standard was raised against the old falsehood. Any 
one acquainted with the French literature of the seven- 
teenth century will recollect innumerable illustrations of 
this view of the matter. You remember, perhaps (as 
an example), the noted passage in Fontenelle's lively 
dialogues on Tlie Plurality of Worlds. There, the sages 
of antiquity, the Pythagorases, Platos, Aristotles, are 
represented as looking at the spectacle of the universe, 
like so many spectators in the pit of the Opera House 
looking at the ballet. The subject of the ballet is sup- 
posed to be, Phaeton carried away by the winds : and 
to represent this, the dancer who enacts the part of 
Phaeton, is made to fly away through the upper part of 
the scene, to the great admiration of the gazers. The 
more speculative of these attempt to explain this extra- 
ordinary movement of Phaeton. One says, " Phaeton 
has an occult quality, which carries him away." This is 
the Aristotelian. Another says, " Phaeton is composed 
of certain numbers, which make him move upwards." 
This is the Pythagorean. Another says, " Phaeton has 
a longing for the top of the theatre. He is not easy 
till he gets there." This is the philosophy which ex- 



244 DR. WHEWELL ON THE 

plains the universe by Love and Hate. Another says, 
" Phaeton has not naturally a tendency to fly ; but he 
prefers flying to leaving the top of the scene empty." 
This is the doctrine of the fiiga vaati, nature's horror of 
a vacuum. And after all this, says the speaker, comes 
Descartes, and some other moderns ; and they say. Phae- 
ton goes up, because he is drawn by certain cords, and a 
weight, heavier than he is, goes down behind the scenes. 
And in truth, the physical philosophy of Descartes did 
contain the greater part of the true explanation of the 
phenomena of the universe, which was known up to this 
time. It contained the principles of Mechanics, with 
few errors ; the principles of Optics, and the beautiful 
explanation of the rainbow, in the discovery of which 
Descartes had so large a share ; and a true system of 
Astronomy, so far as the mere motions are concerned. 
And Descartes' peculiar invention, the hypothesis of 
iojirbillons, — vortices or whirlpools of celestial fluid, by 
which these motions are produced, — though false, was 
not only separable from the other parts of the system, 
but was capable, by modifications, of expressing many 
mechanical truths, as the Bernoullis, and other mathema- 
ticians who retained it for a century, often showed. In 
England, as in France, the Cartesian philosophy meant 
the Mechanical Philosophy, as opposed to the philosophy 
of sympathies and antipathies, occult qualities, arbitrary 
notions of Nature, and the like. The Cartesian philo- 
sophy, in this sense, was introduced into England ; but 
I doubt whether the doctrine of vortices was ever ac- 
cepted here to any considerable extent. It has been 
made, I may be allowed to say, ignorantly and absurdly 
made, an accusation against the Universi^:y of Cam- 
bridge, that the Cartesian system found acceptance 



SCIENTIFIC HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 245 

there. Such an event showed a promptitude in accept- 
ing new scientific views, which has repeatedly been 
exemplified there. But I much doubt whether the 
Cartesian system was ever presented to Cambridge 
students, without a refutation of the vortices being put 
in the notes on the same page. Assuredly it was not 
taught for more than a few years in any other form ; 
but I belifeve, not at all. And in like manner in other 
places, the new mechanical philosophy, Cartesian in 
France, Newtonian in England, rapidly superseded the 
verbal dogmatism of the middle ages. 

And with this triumph of the new opinions, as a 
revolution in science, came the introduction of the new 
doctrines as a revolution, or extension, in education. 
The Cartesian philosophy, — instantly, in England trans- 
formed into the Newtonian philosophy, on the publication 
of Newton's mighty discoveries, — was eagerly received, 
from its very first appearance, and incorporated with the 
elements of a liberal education, both in Newton's own 
university, and elsewhere. And not only were the new 
theories of the solar system rapidly diffused, by means 
of lectures, books, and in other ways ; but the principles 
by which such theories are collected from observation, — 
the principles of that induction on which this great 
fabric of science rests, — became objects of attention, 
respect, and praise. Bacon, with his majestic voice, — 
the trumpeter who stirred up the battle, as he himself 
calls himself, — had already prepared men's minds for 
this feeling of respect and admiration for inductive dis- 
covery, even while the movement was only beginning : 
and in this country at least, many persons, Gilbert, 
Cowley, and others, had re-echoed the sentiment which 
he expressed. He had declared that knowledge, far 



246 DR. WHEWELL ON THE 

more ample and complete than had yet been obtained 
by man, was to be gained by the use of new methods of 
investigation ; and the succeeding time, having produced 
noble examples of such knowledge, had made men see 
that they had entered upon a new epoch of science. 
And it was natural and desirable that in this, as in other 
cases, the possession of a body of new truths, and the 
admiration of the method by which these had been 
acquired, should operate upon the culture of the intel- 
lect, among those who sought the best means of such 
culture ; should introduce new elements into liberal 
education ; — should make it a part of the Rental dis- 
cipline of the best-taught classes, that they should learn 
to feel the force and see the beauty of inductive reason- 
ing; as the older elements of a liberal education, mathe- 
matics and jurisprudence, had been employed, among 
other uses, to make men feel the force, and see the 
beauty, of deductive reasoning. 

And thus we are naturally led to ask, Has this been 
done ? Has education in its most advanced form been 
thus extended ? Is there, in the habitual culture of the 
intellect, in the best system of education, this cultivation 
of the habit, or at least of the appreciation, of inductive 
teaching in science? How is such culture to be effected .-' 
How are we to judge whether it has been affected .'* 

These are very large questions, and yet the time 
admonishes me, if nothing else did, that I must be very 
brief in any answers that I may give to them. I must 
content myself with a hint or two bearing upon the sub- 
ject. And^first, of the mode in which this culture of the 
inductive habit of mind, or at least appreciation of the 
method and its results, is to be promoted ; if I might 
presume to give an opinion, I should say that one 



SCIENTIFIC HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 247 

obvious mode of effecting this discipline of the mind in 
induction is, the exact and soHd study of some portion 
of inductive knowledge. I do not mean the mechanical 
sciences alone, Physical Astronomy and the like; though 
these undoubtedly have a prerogative value as the in- 
struments of such a culture ; but the like effect will be 
promoted by the exact and solid study of any portion 
of the circle of natural sciences ; Botany, Comparative 
Anatomy, Geology, Chemistry, for instance. But I say, 
the exact and solid knowledge ; not a mere verbal know- 
ledge, but a knowledge which is real in its character, 
though it may be elementary and limited 'in its extent. 
The knowledge of which I speak must be a knowledge 
of things, and not merely of names of things ; an ac- 
quaintance vi^ith the operations and productions of nature, 
as they appear to the eye, not merely an acquaintance 
with what has been said about them ; a knowledge of 
the laws of nature, seen in special experiments and 
observations, before they are conceived in general terms ; 
a knowledge of the types of natural forms, gathered from 
individual cases already made familiar. By such study 
of one or more departments of inductive knowledge, the 
mind may escape from the thraldom and illusion which 
reigns in the world of mere words. 

But there is another study which I may venture to 
mention, of a more general and literary kind, also emi- 
nently fitted to promote an appreciation of the nature 
and value of inductive treatment of nature. I mean, the 
History of the Natural Sciences ; for in such history we 
see how, in the study of every portion of the universe, 
the human mind has ascended from particular ;facts to 
general laws ; and yet in every different class of pheno- 
mena, by processes very diffvrent, at first sight at least, 



248 DR. WHEWELL ON THE 

And I mention this study, of the history of science, and 
especially recommend it, the rather, because it supplies, 
as I conceive, a remedy for some of the evils Which, 
along with great advantages, may result from another 
study which has long been, and at present is, extensively 
employed as an element of a liberal education — I mean, 
the study of Logic. The study of Logic is of great value, 
as iixing attention upon the conditions of deductive proof, 
and giving a systematic and technical view of the forms 
which such proof may assume. But by doing this for 
all subjects alike, It produces the Impression that there 
Is a close likeness In the process of Investigation of truth 
in different subjects ; — closer than there really Is. The 
examples of reasoning given in books of Logic are gene- 
rally so trifling as to seem a mockery of truth-seeking, 
and so monotonous as to seem Idle variations of the 
same theme. But in the Hlstoiy of Science, we see the 
infinite variety of nature ; of mental, no less than bodily 
nature; of the Intellectual as well as of the sensible 
world. The modes of generalization of particulars, — of 
ascent from the most actual things to the most abstract 
ideas, — how different are they in botany, In chemistry, 
in geology, in physiology ! Yet all most true and real ; 
all most certain and solid ; all of them genuine and in- 
disputable lines of union and connexion, by which the 
mind of man and the facts of the universe are bound 
together ; by which the universe becomes a sphere with 
intellect for Its centre ; by which intellect becomes in no 
small degree able to bend to Its purposes the powers of 
the universe. 

The history of science, showing U5 how this takes 
place In various forms, — ever and ever new, when they 
seem to have been exhausted, — may do, and carefully 



SCIENTIFIC HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 249 

studied, mttst do, much to promote that due appre- 
hension and appreciation of inductive discovery : and 
inductive discovery, now that the process has been 
going on with immense vigour in the nations of Europe 
for the last three hundred years, ought, we venture to 
say, to form a distinct and prominent part of the intel- 
lectual education of the youth of those nations. And 
having said this, I have given you the ultimate result of 
the reflections which have occurred to me on this subject 
of intellectual education, on which I have ventured to 
address you. And here, therefore, I might conclude. 
But if it did not weary you, I should wish to make a 
remark on the other of the two questions which I askeci 
a little while ago. I then asked. How is such a culture 
to be effected .-* and also. How are we to judge whether 
it has been effected ? 

With regard to the latter question, the remark which 
I have to make is briefly this. — In the inductive sciences, 
every step of generalization is usually marked by some 
word, which, adopted to mark that step, acquires thence- 
forth a fixed and definite meaning ; and is always to be 
used in the sense so given it, not in any other way in 
which other resemblances or incidents may suggest. 
And the definition of technical zvords in inductive science, 
is contained in the history of the science ; is given by 
the course of previous research and discovery. " The 
history of science is our dictionary ; the steps of scientific 
induction are our definitions." Now this being so, we 
may remark, that when we hear a man, in the course of 
an argument, asking for Definitions, as something by 
which error is to be avoided and truth learned, such a 
demand is evidence that his intellectual training has 
been deductive, not inductive — logical, not scientific. 



250 DR. WHEWELL ON THE 

In geometry, and in other demonstrative sciences, De- 
finitions are the beginning of the science — the fountaini 
of truth. But it is not so in the inductive sciences. In 
such sciences, a Definition and a Proposition commonly 
enter side by side — the definition giving exactness to 
the proposition ; the proposition giving reality to the 
definition. 

But further : as technical terms, appropriate to a 
precise and steady sense, mark every step of inductive 
ascent in science, the exact and correct use of the tech- 
nical terms of science is evidence of good inductive 
culture of the mind ; and a vague and improper use of 
such terms, is evidence of the absence of such culture. 
When we hear men speak, as we often do, of impetus 
and momentum, of gravity and inertia, of centripetal and 
centrifugal force, and the !ike, using the terms mostly by 
guess, and assuming oppositions and relations among 
them which do not exist ; as, for instance, when they 
oppose the centrifugal and centripetal force, as if they 
were forces in the same sense, — we cannot help saying 
that such persons, however ingenious and quick they 
may be in picking a possible meaning out of current 
words, by means of their etymology, or any other casual 
light, have not the habit of gathering the meaning of 
scientific words from the only true light, the light of 
induction. 

And this remark may not be without a special use, if 
we recollect that there are at present a number of 
scientific words current among us, which are applied 
with the most fantastical and wanton vagueness of 
meaning, or of no meaning. At all periods of science, 
probably, scientific terms are liable to this abuse, after 
scientific discoveries have brought them into notoriety, 



SCIENTIFIC HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 25 1 

and before the diffusion of science has made their true 
meaning to be generally apprehended. The names, 
indeed, of attraction, gravitation, and the like, have pro- 
bably now risen, in a great degree, out of this sphere of 
. confusion and obscurit}', in which any word may mean 
anything. But there are words — belonging to sciences 
which have more recently reached scientific dignity — 
which words oxcxy one pursuing fancies which are utterly 
out of the sphere of science, seems to think he may use 
just as he pleases. Magnetism and Electricity, and the 
terms which belong to these sciences, are especially 
taken possession of for such purposes, and applied in 
cases in which we know that the sciences from which 
the names are ^* conveyed" have not the smallest appli- 
cation. Is Animal ^Magnetism anything } Let those 
answer who think they can : but ice know that it is not 
Magnetism. When I say zve, I mean those who are in 
the habit of seeing in this place the admirable exhi- 
bitions of what J\Iagnctism is, with which you have long 
been familiar. And assuredly, on the same ground, I 
may say that you have been shown, and know, what 
Electricity is, and what it can do, and what it cannot 
do, and what is not Electricity. And having had the 
opportunity of seeing this, you, at least, have so much 
of the culture of the intellect which inductive science 
supplies, as not to suppose that your words would have 
any meaning, if you were to say of any freak of fancy 
or will, shown in bodily motion or muscular action, that 
it is a kind of Electricity. 



ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY 
OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION 
OF GREAT BRITAIN. 

BY 

W. B. HODGSON, LL.D. 



"Ignorance does not simply deprive us of advantages ; it leads us to 
work our own misery ; it is not merely a vacuum, void of knowledge, but 
a plenum of positive errors, continually productive of unhappiness. Thia 
remark was never more apposite than in the case of Political Economy," — 
Samuel Bailey's Z'wc^wrjd'j', &c. p. 121. 1852. 

"If a man begins to forget that he is a social being, a member of a body, 
and that the only truths which can avail him anything, the only truths 
which are worthy objects of his philosophical search, are tliose which are 
equally ti-ue for every man, which will equally avail every man, which he 
must proclaim, as far as he can, to every man, from the proudest sage to 
tlie meanest outcast, he enters, I believe, into a lie, and helps forward the 
dissolution of that society of which he is a member." — Rev. C. Kingslcy's 
Alexandria and her ScJiooh. L. ii. p. 66. 1854. 

"A man will never be just to others who is not just to himself, and the 
first requisite of that justice is, that he should look every obligation, every 
engagement, every duty in the face. This applies as much to money as 
to more serious affairs, and as much to nations as to men." — Times, June 6, 
1854. 



ON THE 

STUDY OP ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 

It was truly said in this room, some weeks ago, by 
one whose departure from London we must all regret 
— Professor Edward Forbes — that "// is the nature 
of the human mhid to desire and seek a law!' The 
higher desires of man have not been left, any more than 
his lower, without their object and their fulfilment; and 
just as the bodily appetite desires food, while the earth 
yields stores of nourishment, — as the imagination craves 
for beauty, and beauty is on every side, — so, responding 
to man's desire for law, does all Nature bear the impress 
of law. Not to the ignorant or careless eye, however, 
does LAW anywhere reveal itself The discovery of its 
traces is the student's rich and ever fresh reward. To 
men in general, the outward sense reports only a number 
of detached phenomena ; their relations become gradually 
apparent to him only whose mental vision is acute 
enough, and whose gaze is steady enough, to behold 
them. Science, therefore, consists not in the accu- 
mulation of heterogeneous facts, any more than the 
random up-piling of stones is architecture, but in the 
detection of the principles which co-relate facts even the 
most dissimilar and anomalous, and of the order which 
binds the parts into a whole. SCIENCE is, in brief, the 
pursuit of law; and tlie history of science is the rccorfl 



256 DR. HODGSON 

of the steps by which man in this pursuit rises through 
classifications, of which the last is ever more compre- 
hensive than its predecessors, from the complexity of 
countless individuals to the simplicity of the group, 
and from the diversity of the many, at least towards the 
oneness of the universal. 

The discoveries, however, which it needed a Newton 
or a Cuvier to make, may be rendered intelligible in 
their results, if not always in their processes, to ordinary 
understandings; and whether our knowledge be super- 
ficial or profound, the belief in the omnipresence of law, 
in at least the physical world, has long ago taken its 
place in the convictions of the least instructed man. 
Let any one, then, who can realize mentally the dif- 
ference between the aspect which the starry heavens 
bear to the quite ignorant beholder, and that which 
those same heavens present to the man most slightly 
acquainted with the discoveries of astronomy, or be- 
tween the appearances of the vegetable world before 
and after some acquaintance with Vegetable Physiology, 
but who has never thoughtfully considered the phe- 
nomena of industrial life, — let such a one station himself, 
say on London Bridge, at high tide, and in the busy 
hour of day ; let him watch the ever-flowing streams 
of human beings, each bound on. his several errand, — 
the seemingly endless succession of vehicles, with their 
freight, animate and inanimate ; let him look down the 
river, and observe the number and variety of shipping, 
coming and departing from and to all parts of the 
world, remote or near ; let him observe, as he strolls 
onwards, the shops, and warehouses, and wharfs, and 
arsenals, and docks, with their overflowing stores ; the 
almost interminable lines of streets with houses of every 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 257 

size and kind, each tenanted by its respective occupants ; 
the railway stations from which and to which go and 
come, hourly, thousands of human beings, and the pro- 
duce of the industry of millions of human beings ; the 
electric telegraph, transmitting from town to town — nay, 
from land to land — the outward symbols of thought, 
with almost the proverbial speed of the inward thought 
itself; let him consider, that within the range of a few 
miles of ground that produces, directly, none of the 
necessaries of life, are gathered together more than 
2,000,000 of men, women, and children, at the rate, in 
some parts, of 186,000 to the square mile; let him 
ponder how it is that all these people are daily fed, and 
clothed, and lodged, — how it is that all these things 
have been produced and are maintained ; let him further 
consider that this stupendous spectacle is but a sample 
of what is going on, with great varieties, in so many 
other regions 'of the world ; that people, separated by 
thousands of miles of land and sea, who never saw each 
other, who, it may be, scarcely know of each other's 
existence, are busily providing for each other's wants, 
and each procuring his own sustenance by ministering 
to others' necessities or desires ; and then let him, with- 
out at all losing sight of the too obvious evil mixed up 
\\\\h. all this, seriously ask himself, Is this vast field of 
contemplation the theatre also of LAW, which binds the 
several parts together ; or is it a mere giddy and for- 
tuitous dance of discordant and josthng atoms, — in a 
word, a huge weltering chaos, waiting the fiat of some 
Monsieur Cabet or Baboeuf to reduce it to order, and 
convert it into a cosmos, by persuading or compelling 
the several atoms to adopt some cunningly devised 
principle of so-called " organization of labour ? " To 



258 DR. HODGSON 

this question Economic Science professes, at least, to 
supply the answer ; and if science be the pursuit of law, 
and deserve the title in proportion to its success in that 
pursuit, the claims of Economic Science must be tested 
by the nature of the reply it gives. 

It may occur to some who hear me, that the term LAW 
is not applicable in the same sense or way to the various 
classes of phenomena which I have casually indicated. 
In the first, — the region of astronomy, — LAW suggests 
the idea of some mighty force which irresistibly compels 
motions on the grandest scale; in the second, — the 
vegetable world, — it suggests rather a mere principle of 
arrangement, according to which certain unresisting 
bodies are distributed; while in the third, — the Eco- 
nomic World of Man, — a vast difference appears between 
it and the other two, inasmuch as we have here a 
multitude of independent intelligences and wills, acting 
consciously and voluntarily from within, in every variety 
of direction, and often in seeming opposition to each 
other. This difficulty merits a consideration, serious if 
brief. Between the first and second the difference is not 
real, but only apparent. The growth of a plant is as 
wonderful, — as grand an exercise of power, as the revo- 
lution of a planet ; and gravitation, as we call it, no 
more than growth, is in itself a power; both are alilx;e 
expressions and results of that WILL which is in the 
universe the only real power — the only true cause. Our 
very word oi^der has a double sense — arrangement and 
cGinmand; so natural is it for us to identify the one with 
the other, and to believe that arrangement or system 
exists only by command or LAW. And, in truth, 
throughout all things, however diverse the special phe- 
nomena, whether it be the sweep of a comet, or the 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 259 

budding of a flower, we can recognise still only a 
principle or method of arrangement as the result of 
will; and it is because these are so closely and 
invariably connected in our minds, that we are so apt 
to use the word LAW sometimes for the one, and some- 
times for the other, personifying Law, just as we do 
Providence in ordinary speech. 

The real difficulty, however, lies in the third case, that 
is, the subject immediately before us. Having seen the 
primd facie and analogical improbability of the notion 
that the economic world is lawless, the question arises 
— In what way does LAW operate amid so many seem- 
ingly independent and conflicting individualities.? I 
have no desire, and there is happily no need, for long or> 
subtle disquisition. I would merely submit a considera- 
tion in itself quite simple, but fraught, if I mistake not, 
with the most important practical results. In the purely 
inorganic world, law operates irresistibly, and command 
and obedience are strictly coincident, co-extensive, and 
identical. In the motions of the heavenly bodies, for 
example, there is no eccefitricity in the popular sense of 
the term ; even the orbit of a comet, between whose 
successive re-appearances many decades of years and 
whole generations of men pass away, is absolutely 
known — eclipses with the longest intervals are certainly 
foretold. The same fact holds in the organized but 
inanimate world, as in the world both inanimate and 
unorganized. As we ascend in the scale, and enter on 
the animate creation, we find a like fixity and uniformity 
provided for to a very large extent by that most marvel- 
lous faculty — Instinct, which guides almost infallibly the 
lower orders of animals, which maintains an almost 
precise sameness among the most distant generations 



26o DR. HODGSON 

and conducts all surely and unconsciously to the end of 
their being. But Man is a being vastly more complex 
in his nature; he, too, has instincts, but these form a 
much smaller proportion of his whole faculty; with all 
that the lower orders of being have, he has much more 
besides — moral faculties, reason, and will, both the latter 
differing vastly in degree, if not in kind, from those of 
any other creature. The part which he has to play in 
creation is proportionally complex ; and here it is that 
perplexity, and discord, and confusion begin to appear, 
or at least chiefly manifest themselves. It is this surface 
confusion which hides from us the central and pervading 
Law, and makes it difficult to trace its operation. The 
laws or conditions, however, which determine human 
well-being, are really as fixed and absolute as are the 
laws of planetary motion; but man, though so consti- 
tuted as to desire and seek his well-being, has not an 
infallible perception of that in which it consists, or of 
the means by which this end is to be attained. We find, 
throughout, this distinction between man and the lower 
animals. Thus other animals are gifted by nature with 
the clothing suitable to their condition, and it even 
varies in colour and thickness according to the seasons. 
Man alone has with effort to construct what clothing he 
requires ; so, more or less, is it with food ; so is it with 
shelter. Is this an inferiority on the part of man ? 
Surely not; for it is by this very discipline that his 
higher faculties are called into play, and enlarged, and 
strengthened. What appears a penalty is, in reality, a 
blessing. Nature's very provision for the comfort of 
bird or beast seems, at the same time, the sentence of 
incapacity for improvement. Man, however (I speak 
now of the individual), is progressive, being capable of 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 26 1 

improvement ; and he is stimulated to improvement 
because his wants are not sapplied for him, but he is 
compelled to supply them for himself, and his desires 
ever grow with the means of their gratification. The 
whole universe is thus, in truth, a great educational 
organization — a great school, — for the calling out and 
the direction, of what powers are in man latent. But 
his progress is not a smooth advance from good to 
better ; his way lies through evils of many kinds — evils 
attendant inseparably on defective knowledge, and ill- 
regulated desires. Law, which in the physical universe 
operates \]^l-fori}tly, here operates, so to speak, EI- 
fonnly: the law wears, Janus-like, two faces; but it is 
one law nevertheless. It assumes, however, a twofold 
sanction, reward for obedience, punishment for disobedi- 
ence, each being but the complement and corollary of 
the other. Thus the pallid face and irritable nerves of 
the sedentary student, the ruddy cheek and iron muscles 
of the ploughman, — the trembling hand and blood-shot 
eyes of the drunkard, the steady pulse and clear open 
countenance of the temperate man, — are the results not 
of two antagonistic laws, but of one law, vindicating its 
majestic universality in the one case not less than in the 
other. So is it with the stagnant and pestilential swamp 
as contrasted with the cultivated plain ; the ruined 
village with the thriving town ; the land of inhabitants 
few but poor, with the land of inhabitants many and 
rich. It is this difference, accordingly, which in the 
human sphere translates LAW into Duty, and the MUST 
of the Physical World into the OUGHT of the Moral. 
Wordsworth, the most philosophical of poets, has not 
failed to detect their kinship, however, when, in his 
noble " Ode to Duty," he says : — 



262 DR. HODGSON 

" Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, 
And fragrance in thy footing treads : 
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, 
And the most ancient heavens through Thee are fresh and strong. " 

Good, then, being the great end of all the established 
conditions of our life, evil is, and must ever be, the 
result of their violation. As Paley has said that no 
nerve has ever been discovered whose function lies in 
the giving of pain, so, in all things, pain or evil follows 
the breach, not the observance, of a law. But this very- 
pain or evil is not in its end vindictive, or simply puni- 
tive ; its aim is reformation for the future, not merely 
punishment for the past. The child burns its finger in 
the candle flame, cuts its hand with a knife, makes a 
false step and falls, and profits all its life through by the 
lessons it has gained. And so the exhaustion of mind 
or body from over-exertion, the headache from intem- 
perance, are Nature's solemn warnings, tending power- 
fully to prevent future transgression. Man's successes 
and his failures are both, in different ways, instructive ; 
both help him in his career. 

But Man is progressive not only as an individual, but 
as a race. Here, still more, is his superiority to all other 
animals apparent. He is, in some measure, the heir of 
the discoveries, the inventions, the thoughts, and the 
labours, of all foregoing time; and each man has, in 
some measure, for his helper, the results of the accumu- 
lated knowledge of the world. But the transmission of 
experience and knowledge from generation to generation 
is the fundamental condition of progress throughout the 
successive ages of the life of mankind. To a large 
extent, of course, we cannot but profit from the labour 
of our predecessors ; all those products, and instruments, 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 263 

and agencies, which we style " civihzation," our roads, 
our railways, our canals, our courts of law, our houses 
of legislature, and a thousand other embodiments of the 
combined and successive efforts of many generations, 
are our inheritance by birth ; but the very guidance and 
employment of these for their improvement, or even for 
their maintenance, require ever increased knowledge and 
intelhgence. The higher the civilization that a commu- 
nity has attained, the more, not the less, necessary is it 
that its members, as one race succeeds another, should 
be enlightened and informed. No inheritance of indus- 
trial progress can dispense with individual intelligence 
and judgment, any more than the accumulation of books 
can save from the need of learning to read and write. 
But thousands of human beings, born ignorant, are left 
to repeat unguided the same experiments, and to incur 
the same failures and penalties as their parents, — as 
their ancestors. Where these stumbled, or slipped, and 
fell, they too stumble, or slip, and fall, rising again 
perhaps, but not uninjured by the fall. Nature teaches, 
it is true, by penalty as well as by reward ; but it is 
surely wise, as far as may be, to anticipate in each case 
this rough teaching, to aid it by rational explanation, 
and to confine it within safe bounds. The world, doubt- 
less, advances, in spite of all. That industrial progress is 
what it is, proves that the amount of observance of law 
is, on the whole, largely in excess of its violation ; were 
it otherwise, society would retrograde, and humanity 
would perish. This predominance of good results from 
the very constitution of human nature and of the worlds 
by which the individual, working even unconsciously 
and for his own ends, and learning even by failure, 
achieves a good wider than that he contemplates, and 



264 DR. HODGSON 

by which progress, in spite of delay and fluctuation, is 
maintained ahke in the individual and the race. But 
how shall the evil which yet mars and deforms our 
civilization be abated, if not removed, while progress is 
made more rapid, and sure, and equable.-' Both depend 
alike on increased observance of law ; and it is by 
diffusing knowledge of its existence and operation 
that observance of law is rendered more general and 
less precarious. If, then, we would convert not only 
disobedience into obedience, but obedience blind, un- 
conscious, and precarious, into obedience conscious, 
intelligent, and habitual, we must teach all to under- 
stand the nature of the laws on which the universal 
wellbeing depends, and train all in those habits which 
facilitate and secure the observance of those laws. 

Assuming, then, that in the industrial or economi< 
sphere the laws of human wellbeing are as fixed as if 
any other, and that what measure of wellbeing we any- 
where behold is the result of obedience, conscious or un- 
conscious, to those laws, we ought next to inquire what 
those LAWS are. As a preliminary, let us take a hast}- 
suivey of the steps by which any people ascends from 
barbarism to civilization, from destitution to comfort, 
from poverty to wealth. From the review alike of good 
and of cvil^ we shall be able to extract the principles 
which run throughout, and which both good and evil 
concur to attest. In barbarous countries we. find men 
scattered in small numbers over a wide extent of terri- 
tory, living by hunting or fishing, or both combined ; 
every man supplies his own wants directly ; he makes 
his own bow and arrows ; he kills a buffalo for himself; 
with hides stripped and dressed by himself, he con- 
structs his own robe or tent ; he lives from hand to 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 265 

mouth, feasting voraciously to-day, then starving till 
another supply of food can be obtained ; ever on the 
verge of famine, and eking out a precarious subsistence 
by robbery and murder, which he calls war. All but the 
strong perish in early years, and the average duration 
of life is low. If we contemplate the pastoral life instead 
of that of hunting and fishing, still we find that large 
tracts of country are needed for the maintenance of few 
people. If the earth be at all cultivated, it is with the 
rudest implements, and the produce is proportionally 
scanty. So long as each man is entirely occupied in 
providing for his own wants, progress is impossible. So 
soon, however, as by the gradual and slow introduction 
of better implements, and the acquirement of greater 
skill, agriculture becomes more productive, and the 
labour of one man becomes sufficient for the support of 
more than one, of some, of many ; the first condition of 
progress is realized, and the labour of sonje or many is 
now set free ■ for other occupations. Food and clothing, 
fuel and shelter, are the first necessaries of life. But 
instead of every man preparing all these for himself 
directly, instead of every man making for himself all 
that he requires, gradually one man begins to construct 
one article, or set of articles only, while another devotes 
himself to another, with a consequent great increase of 
productiveness in each case, from increased skill and 
economy of time ; in other words, the division of labour 
is begun. But so soon as the industry of the community 
is thus divided, and that of each thus restricted, as each 
still requires all the articles which before he constructed 
for himself, he can obtain them only from those who 
employ themselves in their production ; and this he can 
do only by giving some of his own product as an equi- 
13 



266 DR. HODGSON 

valent, in other words, by exchange. This transaction 
gives meaning to the term value, which denotes simply 
the amount of commodities that can be procured in ex- 
change for any other commodity. Division of labour 
and exchange are thus simultaneous in their origin. 
From the introduction of exchange, industrial progress 
gains a fresh life. Industry having been thus rendered 
more productive than before, subsistence is now provided 
for a larger number of persons than before. The reward 
of industry increasing with its productiveness, ingenuity 
is stimulated to the invention of improved methods, and 
of improved instruments called tools, or, as they become 
more complicated and powerful, inacJiines, though a 
machine is in principle only a tool ; and the very argu- 
ment which is good, if good at all, against a steam- 
plough, is good against the common plough, or a hoe, or 
a spade, or a stake hardened in the fire. 

Population having meantime increased, the land avail- 
able for production becomes more and more fully appro- 
priated ; and as one portion is more fertile, or more 
advantageously situated than another, it becomes more 
advantageous to pay a portion of the produce for the 
right to cultivate a more productive soil, than to culti- 
vate an inferior soil even for nothing; e.g. to pay ten 
•measures of grain for a soil which produces fifty mea- 
sures, than nothing for a soil which produces, say thirty 
or thirty-five ; and hence arises what we call rent. But, 
meantime also, the productiveness of industry having 
become ever greater in proportion to the consumption 
of its produce, the process of accumulation goes on, and 
the unconsumed results of previous labour, which, how- 
ever various their kinds, we term WEALTii, swell to 
larger proportions. But this wealth is not equally poS" 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 267 

sessed by all ; one man, from superior skill, or intelli- 
gence, or economy, or other causes, coming to possess 
more than others, while some, it may be, possess none 
at all. Mere labour, however, without the results of 
foregone labour, embodied in some form, can accomplish 
little ; while the results of foregone labour, in whatever 
form embodied, need fresh labour in order to become 
still more productive. Thus, e.g. a spade is a result of 
past labour ; without it the labourer could accomplish 
little ; and, on the other hand, the spade, without the 
labourer to wield it, would be unproductive. Now, the 
spade here represents that portion of wealth which is 
devoted to further production, and which is called 
CAPITAL. Capital and labour are thus indispensable to 
each other. They may exist in different hands, or in 
the same ; but they must co-exist, and co-operate. 
Thus — if we suppose them to be in different hands — the 
owner of the spade, whom we may call the capitalist, 
may undertake to give the labourer a fixed compensation 
for his labour aided by the spade (an amount which will 
more or less exceed, and can in no case fall below, what 
the labourer without the spade can earn), reserving for 
himself any surplus that may arise after that labour is 
paid. In this case, the labourer's reward is called 
WAGES ; the capitalist's reward is called PROFIT. Or 
the capitalist may lend the spade to the labourer for a 
fixed return (which will be somewhat less than, and 
which cannot exceed, the difference in the labourer's 
productiveness, caused by the spade), the labourer claim- 
ing as his own all that he can realize over and above 
what he pays. In this case, the labourer's return, what- 
ever it may be called, is partly wages and partly profit, 
while, the capitalist's return is termed mterest, or much 



268 DR. HODGSON 

better, usance, an obsolete English word, for it is really 
what is paid for the use of capital in any form. If the 
capital and labour be in the same hands, e.g. if the 
labourer own the spade he uses, the joint return ever 
consists of the^two items here discriminated. 

As industry extends and wealth increases, it is early 
found necessary to provide for the security of property; 
for the suppression of violence and fraud ; and for the 
settlement of disputes that will here and there arise, 
even without evil intention on either side. Hence all 
the machinery of courts of justice, and of government, 
from its highest to its lowest functionary. As these, 
though not in themselves directly producers, are indis- 
pensable to production, and exist for the welfare of all, 
they must be maintained at the expense of all ; hence 
comes TAXATION of various kinds, which it is the busi- 
ness of the legislature to impose justly, and in the way 
least likely to fetter industry, and prevent increase of 
wealth. 

So far as we have hitherto seen, exchanges have as 
yet been effected by direct giving and taking of com- 
modity for commodity, or, as it is termed, barter ; but 
great and serious difficulties attend this system, diffi- 
culties ever more deeply felt as exchanges multiply, and 
become more various ; the baker may not want the shoe- 
maker's shoes, if the latter want his bread; but the latter 
may not want as much bread as equals the value of a 
pair of shoes ; and payment by a half or a third of a 
pair of shoes is impossible. A medium of exchange, 
accordingly, is introduced ; usually the precious metals, 
as they are called, the very word implying one of their 
fitnesses for the task — viz., that in a small bulk they 
contain great value. The non-liability to decay ;-capa- 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 269 

bility of division without loss ; comparative exemption 
from fluctuations of supply; and facility of recognition, 
are among- their other claims. Exchange, thus facilitated 
by the adoption of a medium which all are ready to 
receive, and by which most minute proportions of value 
may be easily represented, proceeds with vastly increased 
rapidity; and value being thus measured habitually in 
money, we have the new element of PRICE. Though 
money in itself is but a very small portion of the capital, 
and still less of the total wealth, of a nation, it so 
habitually represents every kind of capital and wealth, 
that it conveniently becomes a synonyme for both, not, 
however, without some risk of mental confusion and 
error as the result. 

Exchanges becoming thus continually more frequent 
and complicated, it is found convenient and advan- 
tageous, on the principle of the division of labour, that 
a class of men should devote themselves to conduct the 
business of exchange solely, the work of production 
being left to others. By the introduction of merchants, 
who do not themselves produce, a greater amount of 
production is attained, on the whole, than would be 
possible if all both produced and exchanged without 
their intervention. 

But, for facility and frequency of exchange, even at 
home, rapidity, and ease, and safety of communication, 
are indispensable ; good roads, swift conveyances, canals, 
and ultimately railways arise, with their adjuncts of 
carriers and couriers, and post-establishments, and tele- 
graphs of ever greater ingenuity and efficiency. 

Exchange, which --was at first confined within the 
limits of one country, soon extends to other countries, 
with an immense advantage to all, for all are thus made 



270 DR. HODGSON 

partakers in the productions of each, which are more 
and more diverse according to their diversity of cHmate. 
Foreign commerce, with all that it involves of ships, and 
docks, and warehouses, is the most powerful stimulus to 
home industry. But exchange, whether at home or 
abroad, is, in all cases, when analyzed, simply each 
man's giving something that he wants less, for some- 
thing else that he wants more. 

As geographical knowledge and means of transit arc 
increased, numbers pass from one country to another; 
from countries densely to those less densely peopled ; 
from countries where land is all appropriated, to those 
where it is still unclaimed ; from countries where capital 
and labour are comparatively unproductive, to those 
where both are more amply rewarded ; new fields being 
thus perpetually opened up for human industry, and 
increased enjoyment provided by fresh and ever aug- 
mented interchange, both for those who go and for those 
who stay. 

But long ere this, as yet the highest, stage of progress 
has been reached, the precious metals themselves have 
been found incompetent to discharge the full duty of 
exchange ; and paper money, or duly vouched promises 
to pay money, is introduced, with an ever more compli- 
cated machinery of bank-notes and bills of exchange, 
for the management of which class of transactions a still 
further division of labour is introduced by means of 
bankers, bill-brokers, and the other agents by whom 
what we call comprehensively CREDIT is carried on. 

But life and property are subject to contingencies 
which involve serious loss, and which it is impossible 
always to prevent. It is discovered that the evil results 
to individuals, which would be ruinous to one, may, by 



ON THE STUDY. OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 27 1 

combination, be distributed over many. Hence insur- 
ances against fire, against death, against disaster at sea, 
against hail-storms and diseases among cattle, against 
railway accidents, and even against fraud on the part of 
clerks or other assistants, all of which are based on cal- 
culation of averages, this again being based on the con- 
viction that a certain regularity prevails among events 
even the most anomalous and irregular. 

And thus, step by step, by a strictly natural course, 
does the work of industrial progress go on, till we wit- 
ness its gigantic results in our own time and our own 
land — results of which the great Crystal Palace (the 
opening of which was not inaptly coincident with the 
day fixed for this exposition of the principles whose 
triumph it exemplifies) may be justly regarded as the 
crowning and most various illustration — raised, as it has 
been, by voluntary cornbination, on strictly economic 
grounds, and embracing within itself, in one vast space, 
examples of the productions of the labour, the ingenuity, 
the fancy, the skill, the science of all ages and of every 
land. 

In this inevitably brief and incomplete sketch of the 
industrial progress of the world, not only has much been 
omitted, but it is to be observed that the steps do not 
always follow each other in precisely the same order, 
and that much that is here recorded, perforce, succes- 
sively, takes place simultaneously. It is not possible 
here or now to extract from even this most hasty sketch 
the merely theoretic principles which it involves. This is 
the. business of a long course of lectures, and it is not, 
besides, my purpose to expound Economic Science it- 
self, any further than may be indispensable to show its 
importance as a branch of general instruction. Let us 



272 



DR. HODGSON 



rather look at some of the great practical lessons that 
may be deduced from it for the guidance of individual 
conduct. 

Everything, then, that we or others possess, is more or 
less the result of human, that is, of individual, industry. 
It is observable that not where Nature itself is most 
prolific is human labour the most productive ; so true is 
it that necessity is the mother ^f invention and of in- 
dustry as well. Truly has Rousseau remarked, " In the 
, south, men consume little " (he might have said produce 
little) " on a grateful soil ; in the north, men consume 
much," (and of course produce much) " on a soil un- 
grateful." * Where man has most done for him, he often 
does least for himself; and though his labours must be 
seconded by the productiveness of Nature, the latter is 
really more dependent on the former than the former on 
the latter. Now this law holds true of the future as 
well as of the present or the past. Every human being 
must subsist on the produce of his own industry, or on 
that of some one else. Industry, then, is the first duty 
of him who would be honourably independent. 

But it is not by present labour, any more than by 
future, that any man is really sustained. While the crop 
is growing, for example, the labourer is fed by the grain 
of former harvests. Now, if the produce of labour were 
consumed as fast as it is produced, not only would pro- 
gress be impossible, but life itself would be endangered, 
and would ere long cease. Hence the duty of what 
is called, in its narrower sense, economy, or the frugal 
and prudent consumption of what has been produced. 
Disasters, too, will arise, which no human wisdom can 
prevent, but against whose consequences it may provide. 

* Emilc. Liv. I. 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 273 

The very progress of industry involves displacement of 
labour, though it is not true that labour is so super- 
seded, as the phrase is. The invention of printing threw 
amanuenses out of their old employment, though it soon 
employed a thousand men instead of one. During all 
such transitions, it is only by previous savings that those 
thus affected can be maintained till they can adapt 
themselves to the change. Again, the early years of 
every human being are incapable of industrial effort, and 
the child must be maintained by the previous labour of 
others. Upon whom this duty fairly falls, whether on 
some abstraction that we call the State, or society, or on 
the parents of the child to whom his being is due, is a 
question which needs less to be asked than merely to be 
suggested here. Again, the years of labour are limited ; 
the evening of that night approaches in which no man 
can work, and here is another call on the proceeds of 
past industry. The very old, as well as the very young, 
must be supported alike by foregone labour ; in the case 
of the young, it must be by the labour of others ; in the 
case of the old, it must be either by their own previous 
labour, or by that of their children now grown up, or by 
that of society at large — which way is best is surely not 
doubtful. During the years of active life itself, sickness 
will sometimes invade, throwing men often for long 
periods on the resources of the past. Hence the neces- 
sity of forethought, as regards equally the future of 
others whom affection and duty alike commend to our 
care, and our own, when the days of decay and weak- 
ness shall arrive. Now, forethought involves judgment, 
and diligence, and self-denial, i. As to judgment. 
Earnings may be saved, but if injudiciously invested, 
they may be lost. To take a simple case, — hoarded 



274 ^^- HODGSON 

potaioes are a more precarious economy than hoarded 
grain ; and so throughour, where savings are invested 
through banks, or building societies, or raihvay shares, 
or in any other way. The division of labour itself calls 
for ever fresh exercise of judgment. So long as each 
man produces all that he wants for himself, he knows 
precisely what he wants, and how much ; but so soon as 
labour is divided, each man produces not what he wants 
himself, but what others want, or are supposed to want. 
If, then, any one produce by mistake articles which 
others do not want, or of a quality, or to an extent at 
variance with the demand, he suffers serious loss, it may 
be ruin. 2. As to diligence. Without this, labour is 
little different from idleness. But mere labour, however 
diligent, can accomplish little unless guided by intelli- 
gence, for which, as the demands of society increase, 
there is an ever louder call. Knowledge, then, is indis- 
pensable to the attainment of any beyond the lowest 
results of industry. The more we know of the nature 
of that on which, and by which, and in which, and for 
which, we work, the more likely, nay certain, is our work 
to turn to good account. This knowledge, when embo- 
died in practice and confirmed by it, becomes skill. The 
very tools and machines which some fancy supersede 
human labour and skill, are the results of both, and they 
render the former infinitely more productive, and call for 
ever more of the latter for their improvement, if not for 
their actual guidance. 3. As regards self-denial. One 
of its most important forms is temperance, without which 
labour, especially of the higher kinds, is precarious ; it 
may be, impossible. As society advances, the relations 
of man to his fellows become more and more numerous 
and complex. Credit, as it is well called, holds a larger 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 275 

and larger place, and reliance on each other's faith be- 
comes more and more important. Honesty, accordingly, 
whether in its lower forms, such as punctuality, or in its 
higher, to which we give the name integrity, is thus an 
indispensable condition of human progress. Were the 
exceptions to this condition to become much more 
■ frequent, the bonds of human society would be propor- 
tionally loosened, and civilization would go backward. 
In scarcely a subordinate degree are civility, courtesy, 
mutual forbearance, and willingness to oblige, necessary 
to oil the .wheels of the .social machine, which, without 
these, would move but slowly and creakingly along. 
These things we all need in our own case ; and to be 
received, they must be given. 

It is only in so far as all these qualities of diligence, 
and economy, and skill, and forethought, and intelli- 
gence, and temperance, and integrity, and courtesy, have 
been manifested, that wealth has been created, and that 
society in any age or country has advanced. It is just in 
so far as these have been neglected that poverty, and 
misery, and evil, of every kind, abound. Such are some 
of the chief practical lessons of Economic Science when 
rightly studied. 

And will any one ask, "Are these mere truisms the 
boasted results of economic teaching ? " In reply, much 
may be said. What is a truism to one mind, say to all 
here, may be really unknown to thousands beyond these 
walls. In such subjects, again, the profoundest truth is 
ever the simplest. It is its very simplicity that blinds 
us to its value and comprehensiveness. Further, we are 
so easily familiarized with the mere nam-es of duties, 
and so accustomed to assent with the lips to their 
obligation, that we neglect to consider either their basis 



276 DR. HODGSON 

or their practical working. We go on daily assenting 
to truths we daily violate ; it is not uncommon to lecture 
on ventilation in rooms whose atmosphere is stifling ; to 
eulogize economy in the midst of reckless expenditure ; 
and health is sometimes injured by very diligence in 
the study of its laws. What men all want, is not merely 
the discovery and promulgation of new truth, however 
useful, but the freshening up of old truths long ago 
admitted. The coins which we carry about with us, 
and which pass continually from hand to hand, have 
had the sharpness of their edges worn oft, their legend 
all but effaced. We need to have them cast anew into 
the mint of thought, and re-stamped with their original 
" image and superscription," Rote-teaching is pernicious 
in morals not less than in merely intellectual matters. 
The explanation of a law, its demonstration, should ever 
go hand in hand with its inculcation. For the sake of 
those who may say, or at least think, " All tltis we knew 
long ago," let me use an illustration from the quite 
parallel case of Physiology. In my younger days I 
was accustomed to hear much vague talk about air and 
exercise ; on all hands I heard that nothing was so good 
as exercise and fresh air. Well, so long as the restless 
activity of boyhood lasted, there was less need for in- 
struction on this head ; boys take fresh air and exercise 
in blind obedience to a blessed law of their nature. 
But when youth came on, and intellect became more 
mature, and books began to push cricket from its 
throne, all the rumour about air and exercise was quite 
inoperative to prevent long days and late nights of 
sedentary position, of confinement in close rooms, of 
hard work of the brain, while the circulation of the 
blood was impeded, the lungs laboured, the muscles 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 277 

lost their energy^ and the skin its freedom of transpira- 
tion and its vigour to resist agencies from without. 
When, like most of you, I listened in delight to the 
beautiful expositions of my immediate predecessor, 
perhaps I was not alone in thinking that, had we all 
been taught in early life the economy of the lungs, 
and heart, and blood-vessels, and brain, — had we been 
shown that the blood which nourishes the body must 
be purified by frequent contact with the outer air ; that 
for this purpose it passes frequently through the lungs, 
receiving from the air fresh life, while its impurities are 
thrown off; that in the process of breathing, the air is 
rapidly deteriorated and rendered unfit to sustain life, 
constant renovation being thus required ; that by mus- 
cular compression consequent on exercise, the circula- 
tion is quickened, as well as the breathing, so that the 
blood is thus more rapidly purified, the efiete particles 
of matter are more quickly removed, and our bodies 
in truth more frequently and healthfully renewed, — ^we 
should many of us have been spared much suffering 
and much loss of power arising necessarily from violar 
tion of the vital laws. And so with Economic Science. 
It is of no avail to repeat by rote phrases about industry, 
and temperance, and frugality, &c. The results of the 
observance and of the violation of those duties, as ex- 
emplified in the actual working of social life, must be 
clearly shown, and so enforced that the knowledge shall 
be wrought into the very tissue and substance of the 
mind, never to perish while life lasts, so that all things 
shall be brought to the .'test of the principles thus in- 
corporated with the intellect itself Further, in the case 
of both sciences alike, mere teaching, or addressing of 
the intellect, even if that be convinced, is not all, or 



27^ DR. HODGSON 

enough. Training must accompany teaching ; tlie for- 
mation of habits must go on with the clearing of the 
intellectual vision. I speak not of schools alone, or of 
homes alone ; in both must the embryo man be ac- 
customed, as well as told, to do what is right. He who 
has once learned by habit the delight and the advantage 
of daily ablution of the whole body, or of daily exercise 
in all weathers, in the open air, will not easily abandon 
or interrupt either of these habits. And so with in- 
dustry and the rest. Every fresh act of obedience is no 
longer, as it were, the effort of a distinct volition, but an 
almost automatic repetition of an act first commanded 
by reason. This conversion of the voluntary into the 
spontaneous is the true guarantee for perseverance in 
any line of conduct, the excellence of which has been 
already recognised by the understanding. 

The anafogy between the Physiological and the 
Economic Sciences, both in their nature and in their 
present position, seems to me to hold throughout. Thus 
ignorance does not in either confer any exemption from 
the evils attending the breach of any law, however it 
may be admitted in extenuation at the bar of human 
justice. The child who takes arsenic for sugar, dies as 
surely as the wilful suicide. The youth launched on 
this busy world without any of the knowledge here 
indicated, finds Greek iambics, and even conic sections, 
of no guidance in its industrial relations, and he suffers 
and fails accordingly. What is the inference } That 
ignorance should be removed, and evil prevented, by 
early teaching, rather than left'to the bitter regimen of 
experience. Coleridge has finely compared experience 
to the stern lights of a vessel, which illuminate only the 
track over which it has passed. Tt is for us rather to 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCli. 279 

fix the light of knowledge on the prozv, to illumine the 
course which the ship has yet to take. It would surely 
be a great gain, were all offences against economic law 
reduced to the category of wilful disobedience, in spite 
of knowledge ; for such, I firmly believe, are, especially 
at the outset, vastly the minority. 

Again : Health, much as it depends on individual 
observance of its laws, is greatly dependent on their 
observance by others also. The profligate parent trans- 
mits a feeble and sickly organization to his child; just 
as opposite conduct tends to the opposite result. The 
pestilence which foulness in one part of a city has bred, 
extends to other parts ; and the consequences of the 
offence spread far beyond the original offender. So, 
economically, does each man suffer for others' trans- 
gressions besides his own. The idleness, and wasteful- 
ness, and intemperance of parents entail hunger, and 
faggedness, and every form of misery, on the unhappy 
children. The industrious, and provident, and honest 
members of the community are stinted in their means 
for the support of the idle, and improvident, and dis- 
honest, and for their own protection against the depreda- 
tions of those who seek to live by others' labour rather 
than their own. No law of our existence is more sure 
than this. It is idle to cavil or complain. Let us rather 
see how the recognition of this law should affect us. 
What is the practical inference .-' It is that the interests 
of humanity are one ; that throughout mankind there is, 
in French phrase, a solidarity, which renders each re- 
sponsible, in some measure, for the rest. The policy of 
selfish isolation is, therefore, vain, as well as sinful. We 
suffer from our neglect of the well-being of our fellow- 
men. The -gaol fever, Avhich the gross negligence of 



28o DR. HODGSON 

prison authorities produced in former days, slew the 
juryman in the box, and even the judge upon the bench. 
And it is not in purse alone, or even chiefly, that we 
suffer from the existence of the destitute, or the depraved. 
The great mountain of human evil throws its dark, cold 
shadow on every one of us ; in such an atmosphere our 
own moral nature droops and pines ; and just propor- 
tioned to the mental elasticity which attends every 
successful effort to spread good around us, is the 
numbing and hardening pressure of that great mass of 
vice and misery which v/e feel ourselves impotent to 
relieve. 

One more analogy I Avould briefly note. Wc knov/ 
how common quack medicines arc. Why is this ,-' 
Because, through ignorance of physiological laws, people 
arc silly enough to'^believe that any nostrum can exist 
potent to repair, as by a magic spell or incantation, the 
evil results of their own neglect of health and its con- 
ditions. To such people, talk about air and exercise, 
and washing, and regular diet, and early hours, and 
temperance, and alternation of labour and rest, is very 
uninteresting and commonplace. To a similar class of 
persons, discourse on diligence and economy, and fore- 
thought and integrity, is very dull. " What is the use 
of all your chemistry," said the old lady, " if you cannot 
take the stain out of my silk gown .-' " And by tests not 
less narrow and erroneous are the teachings of science, 
whether economical or physiological, often tried. But a 
change is coming over the public estimate of the latter, 
at least in this respect. Preventiofi is being ever more 
thought of than aire ; or, in technical phrase, i\\c prophy- 
lactic claims, and now receives, more attention than the 
therapeutic portion of the physician's art. Pure water. 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 28 1 

and fresh air and light are now, almost for the first time, 
really recognised as the fundamental and indispensable 
conditions of health ; and baths, and drains, and venti- 
lators, and wash-houses, are fast encroaching on the 
domain of the blister and the lancet, the pill and the 
black draught. Now, what systems of the treatment 
of disease are to Sanitary Physiology, Poor-laws and 
Charitable Institutions and Criminal Legislation are to 
Economic Science. It aims at preventing the evils 
which those seek to deal with as they arise. The 
attempt may never quite succeed ; but its success will 
be exactly proportioned to the vigour and unanimity 
with which it is made. It seeks to treat the source of 
the disease, rather than the mere symptoms. It is only 
as the former is removed that the latter will disappear. 
By all means let no palliative be neglected in the mean- 
time, but let no cure be expected therefrom. Efforts to 
perfect systems of poor-laws, or criminal laws, however 
excellent or useful, must be abortive, because the very 
existence of the evils which these address is abnormal ; 
and it is for the removal of these wens and blotches on 
the social system that we must strive, not for their mere 
abatement by topical applications, or the rendering of 
them symmetrical and trim. Wisdom and Benevolence 
here meet, and are at one. 

Yet persons are not wanting who meet our desire that 
Economic Science should be taught to all, and especially 
to the young, by the cry that " it tends to make men 
selfish." In reply, I will not content myself with saying, 
in the words of Shakspere, " Self-love is not so vile a 
sin as self-neglecting." I go much further, and assert 
that this teaching, if properly conducted, has precisely 
the opposite tendency. Its great purpose is, to show 



282 DR. HODGSON 

how the community is enriched by the industry of the 
individual, and how the value of individual industry is 
measured by its result in enriching the community. It 
wholly disowns and condemns every mode of enriching 
the individual at the general expense, or even without 
the general advantage. Thus, the merchant who brings 
a commodity, say tea, from a country where it is cheap 
to one where it is dear, and gains a profit by the trans- 
action, fulfils the conditions of Economic Science. He 
serves at once the community in which he lives by 
bringing an article from a place where it is less, to a 
place where it is more, wanted ; and the community 
with which he trades by giving them in exchange for 
the article they sell something that they value more. 
But the man who enriches himself at the gaming-table, 
or by other means more or less resembling the picking 
of pockets, does injury, not service, to the community. 
He is wholly out of the pale of Economic Science ; 
he may be a chevalier d'industrie, in the French sense, 
but Economic Science disowns his industry, and con- 
demns him as a wasteful consumer of what others 
have produced. It teaches every man to look on 
himself as a portion of society, and widens, not narrows, 
his views of his own calling. 

And here I cannot but express my deep regret that 
one to whom we all owe, arid to whom we all pay, so 
much gratitude, and afi*ection, and admiration, for all 
he has written and done in the cause of good — I mean 
Mr. Charles Dickens — should have lent his great genius 
and name to the discrediting of the subject whose claims 
I now advocate. Much as I am grieved, however, I am 
not much surprised, for men of purely literary culture, 
with keen and kindly sympathies which range them on 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 283 

what seems the side of the poor and weak, against the 
rich and strong, and, on the other hand, with refined 
tastes, which are shocked by the insolence of success 
and the ostentation incident to newly-acquired wealth, 
are ever most apt to fall into the mistaken estimate of 
this subject which marks most that has yet appeared of 
his new tale. Hard Times. Of wilful misrepresentation 
we know him to be incapable ; not the less is the mis- 
representation to be deplored. We have heard of a 
young lady who compromised between her desire to 
have a portrait of her lover, and her fear lest her parents 
should discover her attachment, by having the portrait 
painted very unlike. What love did in the case of this 
young lady, aversion has done in the case of Mr. 
Dickens, who has made the portrait so unlike, that 
the best friends, of the original cannot detect the re- 
semblance. His descriptions are just as like to real 
Economic Science as "statistics" are to " stutterings," 
two words which he makes one of his characters not 
very naturally confound. He who misrepresents what 
he ridicules, does, in truth, not ridicule what he mis- 
represents. Of the lad Bitzer, he says, in No. 218 of 
Household Words : — 

" Having satisfied himself, on his father's death, that 
his mother had a right of settlement in Coketown, this 
excellent young economist had asserted that right for 
her with such a stedfast adherence to the principle of 
the case, that she had been shut up in the workhouse 
ever since. It must be admitted that he allowed her 
half a pound of tea a year, which was weak in him : 
first, because all gifts have an inevitable tendency to 
pauperize the recipient ; and, secondly, because his only 
reasonable transaction in that commodity would have 
been to buy it for as little as he could possibly give. 



284 DR. HODGSON 

and to sell it for as much as he could possibly get ; it 
having been clearly ascertained by philosophers that in 
this is comprised the whole duty of man — not a part of 
man's duty, but the whole." — P. 335. 

Here Economic Science, which so strongly enforces 
parcjital duty, is given out as discouraging its moral, 
if not economic correlative — -filial duty. But where do 
economists represent this maxim as the whole duty of 
man .-* Their business is to treat of man in his industrial 
capacity and relations ; they do not presume to deal 
with his other capacities and relations, except by showing 
what must be done in their sphere to enable any duties 
whatever to be discharged. Thus it shows simply that 
without the exercise of qualities that need not be here 
named again, man cannot support those dependent on 
him, or even himself If it do not establish the obliga- 
tion, it shows how only the obligation can be fulfilled. 

Let me once more recur to physiology for an illus- 
tration. The duty of preserving one's own life and 
health will not be gainsaid. Physiology enforces this 
duty by showing how it must be fulfilled. But, if one's 
mother were to fall into the sea, are we to be told that 
physiology forbids the son to leap into the waves, and 
even peril his own health and life in the effort to save 
her who gave him birth } Physiology does not command 
this, it is true ; this is not its sphere ; but this, at least, 
it does, — it teaches and trains to the fullest development 
of strength and activity, that so they may be equal for 
every exigency — even one so terrible as this ; and so 
precisely with Economic Science. 

Again, we are told it discourages marriage : — • 

" ' Look at me, ma'am,' says Mr. Bitzer. * I don't 
want a wife and family. Why should they ? ' 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 285 

* Because they are improvident/ said Mrs. Sparsit. 

* Yes, ma'am, that's where it is. If they were more 
provident, ahd less perverse, ma'am, what would they 
do ? They would say, " While my hat covers my 
family," or, "While my bonnet covers my family," as 
the case might be, ma'am, " I have only one to feed, 
and that's the person I most like to feed." ' " — P. 336. 

Does this mean that men or women ought to rush 
blindly into the position of parents, without thinking or 
caring whether their children can be supported by their 
industry, or must be a burden on that of society at 
large? If not, on what ground is prudent hesitation, 
in assuming the most solemn of all human responsi- 
bilities, a subject for ridicule and censure ? Is the 
condition of the people to be improved by greater or 
by less laxity in this respect ? 

But not merely are we told that this teaching (which, 
by the way, scarcely exists in any but a very few 
schools), tends to selfishness, and the merging of the 
community in the individual ; it has, it seems, also, a 
quite opposite tendency to merge the individual in the 
community, by accustoming the mind to dwell wholly 
on averages. Thus, if in a city of a million of inhabi- 
tants, twenty-five are starved to death annually in the 
streets, or if of 100,000 persons who go to sea, 500 are 
drowned, or burned to death, we are led to believe that 
Economic Science disregards these miseries, because 
they are exceptional, and because the average is so 
greatly the other way ! Now, though in comparison of 
two countries, or two periods, such averages are indis- 
pensable, Economic Science practically teaches every- 
where to analyze the collective result into its constituent 
elements, — in a word, to individualise. It teaches, for 



286 DR. HODGSON 

example, that every brick, and stone, and beam of this 
building, of this street, of this city, has been laid by some 
individual pair of hands ; and it urges every man to work 
for himself, and to render his own industry ever more 
productive, surely not to rest in idle contemplation of 
the average of industry throughout the land. It is his 
duty to swell, not to reduce that average. So with pros- 
perity. I am quite unable to see what tendency the 
knowledge of that average can have to discourage the 
effort to increase it. Besides, it is a fundamental error 
to confound mere statistics with economic science, which 
deals with facts only to establish their connections by 
way of cause and effect, and to interpret them by laiv. 

But were it otherwise, with what justice can economic 
instruction be charged with destroying imagination, by 
the utilitarian teaching of " stubborn facts .'* " Why should 
either exclude the other .-* I can see no incompatibility 
between the two. (Vyy all means let us have poetry, but 
first let us have our daily bread,Jeven though man is not 
fed by that alone. It is the Poet Rogers who says, in a 
note to his poem on Italy, " To judge at once of a nation, 
we have only to throw our eyes on the markets and the 
fields. If the markets are well supplied, and the fields 
well cultivated, all is right. If otherwise, we may say, 
and say truly, these people are barbarous or oppressed." 
Destitution must be removed, for the very sake of the 
higher culture. If we would have the tree fling its 
branches widely and freely into the upper air, its roots 
must be fixed deeply and firmly in the earth. But 
enough of this subject, on which I have entered with 
pain, and only from a strong sense of duty. The public 
mind, alas ! is not cnlightetied enough to render such 
writing harmless. 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 287 

Hitherto, I have spoken only of those great principles, 
and the duties flowing therefrom, which pervade the 
whole subject. But if these principles are the most 
comprehensive, there are very many others which, in 
the practical affairs of life, it is most important thoroughly 
to understand, and which it is the peculiar business of 
Economic Science to expound. It is an error to suppose 
that in matters touching men's "business and bosoms," 
even though of daily and hourly recurrence, instruction 
is not needed, and that " common sense " is a sufficient 
guide, Alas ! common sense is widely different from 
proper sense. It is precisely in these subjects that error 
most extensively prevails, and that it is most pernicious 
where it does prevail. In matters far removed from 
ordinary life and experience, pure ignorance is possible, 
perhaps ; and, in comparison, little mischievous. But in 
those which concern us all and at all times, it is alike 
impossible to be purely ignorant and to be ignorant 
with impunity. If the mind have not right notions de- 
veloped at first, it will certainly have wrong ones. Hence 
we may say of knowledge what Sheridan Knowles says 
of virtue : " Plant virtue early ! Give the floivcr the 
chance you suffer to the weed !" 

The minds of most men are a congeries of maxims, 
and notions, and opinions, and rules, and theories picked 
up here and there, now and then, some sound, others 
unsound, each often quite inconsistent with the rest, but 
which are to them identified with the whole body of 
truth, and which are the standard by which they try all 
things. This fact explains a remark in a recent school 
report, that it is far easier to make this science intel- 
ligible to children than to their parents. No doubt, just 
as it is easier to build on an unoccupied ground, than 



28b DR. HODGSON 

on one overspread by ruins. And so, not only is it pos- 
sible to teach this subject to the young ; but it is to the 
young that we must teach it, if we would have this 
teaching most effective for good. For further evidence 
of the general need for this kind of instruction, it suffices 
to look around us, and test some of the opinions pre- 
valent lately or even now. And here there is much of 
interest that might be said, did time permit, of still 
prevailing errors regarding strikes, and machinery, and 
wages, and population, and protection, and taxation, and 
expenditure, and competition, and much more besides. 
ButiKnto this field my limits forbid even me to enter. 

The programme of this lecture speaks of the impor- 
tance of Economic Science to all classes. It would be 
a serious error to suppose that its advantage is confined 
wholly, or even chiefly, to those who depend on daily 
labour for daily bread. Even were it so, in the midst of 
frequent and rapid changes of position, the rich man 
becoming poor, as well as the poor man becoming rich, 
this kind of teaching would still be important for all 
classes. But the capitalist not less, it may be said even 
more, than the labourer, needs instruction. He has been 
styled the captain of industry ; it is for him to marshal, 
and equip, and organize, and pay its forces, and to guide 
their march. Any mistake on his part must be widely 
injurious. The wise employment of capital is a most 
momentous question ; for it determines the direction of 
the industry of millions, and affects the prosperity of all 
coming time. From the class of the rich, too, are our 
legislators chiefly chosen. To them this kind of know- 
ledge is important just in proportion as, in their case, 
ignorance or error is most pernicious. Of the aristocracy 
of our day, were old Burton living now, he would scarcely 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 289 

say what he said of those of his own time : " They are 
like our modern Frenchmen, that had rather lose a pound 
of blood in a single combat, than a drop of sweat in any 
honest labour." * The contagion of industry has spread 
to them ; and idleness is less than ever confounded 
with nobility. But there is ample room for further pro- 
gress. If wealth, even economically considered, involve 
increased responsibility, it calls the more loudly for 
enlightenment and guidance. 

Again, on the side of expenditure, or consumption, 
does this subject especially concern the rich. As supply 
ever follows demand, it is by this that production is 
mainly guided. Shall it run in the direction of sen- 
suality and self-indulgence, or shall it flow in better and 
more useful channels } Memorable are the words of 
Lord Byron in his later days in Greece : — 

" The mechanics and working classes who can main- 
tain their families are, in my opinion, the happiest body 
of men. Poverty is wretchedness ; but it is perhaps to 
be preferred to the heartless, unmeaning dissipation of 
the higher orders. I am thankful I am now entirely 
clear of this, and my resolution to remain clear of it for 
the rest of my life is immutable." f 

At this most suggestive topic I can barely hint. Much 
beside I am forced wholly to omit. But I must not pass 
in total silence the claims of this subject on the atten- 
tion of the other sex. Fortunately, little needs be said 
within this Institution, of whose audience at lectures on 
every subject ladies form perhaps not the smallest, and 
certainly not the least attentive portion. Surely I shall 
not be told that a superficial sketch, such as mine, is for 

* Anatomy of Melancholy. 

t Last Days of Lord Byron. By W. Parry, 1825. P. 205. 
14 



290 DR. HODGSON 

them unobjectionable, but that the serious study of the 
science is, in their case, to be discountenanced. If any 
kind of knowledge can do harm to any living being, it 
is just this very superficial knowledge. It is like the 
twilight which, holding of day on the one hand, and 
of night on the other, mocks the senses with distorted 
appearances which thicker darkness would hide, but 
which a broader daylight would dispel. In truth, women 
have a special interest in this subject. The part they 
play in industrial pursuits depends much on conven- 
tional circumstances, and varies in various countries ; 
but in all, their influence in the region of expenditure 
is vastly great. Who shall say how deeply the welfare 
of families and of society at large is involved in this .-* 
Again, the domain of charity is peculiarly feminine ; 
and the benevolent impulse, ever so ready to spring up, 
needs to be guided to the prevention, rather than to the 
relief, of what is too often, in fitter phrase, the indirect 
iofrease of misery. Well does Thomas Carlyle (no 
friend of the dismal science, as he loves to call it), in his 
quaint, odd way, exclaim : — • 

V What a reflection it is, that we cannot bestow on 
an unworthy man any particle of our benevolence, our 
patronage, or whatever resource is ours, — without with- 
drawing it, and all that will grow of it, from one worthy, 
to whom it of right belongs ! We cannot, I say ; im- 
possible : it is the eternal law of things. Incompetent 
Duncan M'Pastehorn, the hapless incompetent mortal to 
whom I give the \:obbling of my boots — and cannot find 
in my heart to refuse it, the poor drunken wretch having 
a wife and ten children; he withdraws the job from 
sober, plainly competent and meritorious Mr. Sparrow- 
bill, generally short of work, too ; discourages Sparrow- 
bill; teaches him that he, too, may as well drink and 
loiter and bungle ; that this is not a scene for merit and 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 29 1 

demerit at all, but for dupery, and whining flattery, and 
incompetent cobbling of every description — clearly tend- 
ing to the ruin of poor Sparrowbill ! What harm had 
Sparrowbill done me, that I should so help to ruin him ? 
And I couldn't save the insalvable Mr, Pastehorn : I 
merely yielded him, for insufficient work, here and there 
a half-crown, which he oftenest drank. And now Spar- 
rowbill also is drinking ! " * 

Between the Lady Bountiful of olden times, with her 
periodical distributions of coals and blankets, and simples 
and cowslip wine, who regarded the poor as her pets, 
her peculiar luxury, of which, did they cease to be 
mendicants, she would be cruelly deprived, — and the 
Mrs. Jellyby, whose long-ranged benevolence shoots in a 
parabolic curve far over what is near, to descend on 
what is remote, hurrying past and above St. Giles or 
Whitechapel, and exploding on " Borrioboola Gha ; " — 
between these widely distinct forms of what is called in 
both alike CHARITY, there is room and there is need for 
women of judgment as clear as their sympathy is earnest, 
who can think for themselves, as well as feel for others ; 
who shall not so do good that evil may come, but rather 
help the feeble to self-help, and, while they raise the 
fallen, look mainly to " forestalling " others " ere they 
come to fall." 

Up to this point I have spoken solely of one class of 
'advantages attending the teaching of Economic Science. 
But, as you have been told oftener than once during this 
course, the teaching of every branch of knowledge has, 
in different degrees, two sorts of advantage ; ist, in in- 
creasing man's outward resources ; 2nd, as a means of 
mental discipline and inward culture. Of the second of 

* Model Prisons, p. 24 ; Latter-Day Pamphlets, No. 2. 



292 DR. HODGSON 

these advantages I can now say but little. It is wholly 
unimportant to discuss the comparative claims of diffe- 
rent subjects in this respect. The difference among them 
is, perhaps, rather of kind than of degree. Mathematics 
discipline one set of powers, metaphysics another ; or in 
so far as both exercise the same powers, it is in different 
ways. I claim no monopoly, I arrogate no superiority. 
I simply assert the educational value of this subject, 
without prejudice to any other, and all the more 
strongly, because it has been and is so sadly neglected. 
Surely, those subjects which have the most direct and 
powerful bearing on human wellbeing, and which treat 
of some of the most important relations between man 
and man, cannot be educationally less efficient than 
other studies which concern man less closely and 
directly. And I leave it to you who have heard even 
this most imperfect and hurried exposition, to judge 
whether it can fail to be a most improving mental exer- 
cise to sift such questions as the relations and laws of 
price, of capital and labour, and wages and profits, and 
interest and rent, and to trace to their origin, and follow 
to their results, the fluctuations affecting all these in our 
own and other countries, in our own and other times. 
As regards the other sex, on this ground, at least, there 
can be no doubt, even if the former admitted of hesita- 
tion. To women and to men, this discipline is alike 
valuable : for women it is even more necessary ; for men 
are inevitably brought more into contact with the world 
and its affairs, and so have the defects of their early 
teaching in part corrected. It is well, at the same time 
that the understanding is exercised, to foster an interest 
in human welfare by an enlarged comprehension of its 
conditions. We hear little now of the policy or prO' 



ON THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 293 

priety of confining women's studies to superficial 
accomplishment. It were an error, scarcely less serious, 
to confine them to inquiries which leave the individual 
isolated from the race. 

Let me not, in conclusion, be supposed to ignore, be- 
cause I would not invade, other, and (by common con- 
sent) the most sacred grounds on which the moral 
aspects of this subject may be viewed. Let the duties 
on which human welfare, even industrially considered, is 
dependent, be enforced elsewhere, by reasons too high 
for discussion here. But surely this ground, at least, is 
in common to religious sects of every variety of creed 
and name. Surely it is a solemn and cogent considera- 
tion, that the very fabric of our social being is held 
together by moral laws, and that the man who violates 
them, outlaws himself, as it were, from the social 
domain, and rouses into armed hostility a thousand 
agencies which might and would otherwise fight upon 
his side. Not only the profligate, the gambler, the 
swindler, and the drunkard, but the idle, the reckless, the 
unpunctual, the procrastinating, find here a bitter but 
wholesome condemnation ; and the very science which 
is ignorantly charged with fostering selfishness, teaches 
every man to estimate his labours by their tendency to 
promote the general good. Nor is it unimpressive, as 
regards even what Wordsworth so finely calls 

"The tmreasoniiig progress of the world,"* 

to watch how the social plan is carried on by the com- 
position of so many volitional forces, each bent on its 

* '* In the unreasoning progress of the world 
A wiser spirit is at work for us, 
A better eye than ours." — Wordsworth. 



294 DR. HODGSON ON ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 

own aims. "The first party of painted savages," it 
has been well said, " who raised a few huts upon the 
Thames, did not dream of the London they were 
creating, or know that in hghting the fire on their hearth 
they were kindHng one of the great foci of Time." . . . 
" All the grand agencies which the progress of mankind 
evolves are formed in the same unconscious way. They 
are the aggregate result of countless single wills, each of 
which, thinking merely of its own end, and perhaps fully 
gaining it, is at the same time enlisted by Providence in 
the secret service of the world." * If law be indeed the 
expression of an intelligent and benevolent will, reve- 
rence and obedience towards the great Lawgiver must 
surely be fostered (mark, I do not say created) by the 
study of His laws, and the contrasted results of their 
observance and their violation. And, finally, as regards 
that practical religion whose testing fruit is effort for 
the good of man, — a study which shows so clearly that 
human welfare is involved in obedience to fixed laws, 
and that obedience, to be reliable, must be based on 
knowledge of their existence and authority, must surely 
stimulate the extension of this needful knowledge 
among all classes of the people. In this light, it is 
abundantly apparent that, sacred as is the duty of 
acquiring knowledge, the duty of diffusing it is not less 
sacred ; and that knowledge is no exception to the 
divine precept — " It is more blessed to give than to 
receive." 

* James Martineau. 



ON POLITICAL EDUCATION. 

EY 

HERBERT SPENCER. 

FROM 
ESSAYS MORAL, POLITICAL, AND ESTHETIC. 



ON POLITICAL EDUCATION. 



And now let us look at the assembly of representatives 
thus chosen. Already we have noted the unlit com- 
position of this assembly as respects the interests of its 
members; and we have just seen what the represen- 
tative theory itself implies as to their intelligence. Let 
us now, however, consider them more nearly under this 
last head. 

And first, what is the work they undertake ? Observe, 
we do not say, the work which they ought to do ; but 
the work which they propose to do, and try to do. This 
comprehends the regulation of nearly all actions going 
on throughout society. Besides devising measures to 
prevent the aggression of citizens on each other, and 
to secure each the quiet possession of his own ; and 
besides assuming the further function, also needful in 
the present state of mankind, of defending the nation, 
as a whole, against invaders ; they unhesitatingly take 
on themselves to provide for countless wants, to cure 
countless ills, to oversee countless affairs. Out of the 
many beliefs men' have held respecting God, Creation, 
the Future, etc., they presume to decide which are true ; 
and endow an army of priests to perpetually repeat 
them to the people. The distress inevitably resulting 
from improvidence, and the greater or less pressure of 



298 HERBERT SPENCER 

population on produce, they undertake to remove : they 
settle the minimum which each rate-payer shall give in 
charity; and how the proceeds shall be administered. 
Judging that emigration will not naturally go on fast 
enough, they provide means for carrying off some of the 
labouring classes to the colonies. Certain that social 
necessities will not cause a sufficiently rapid spread of 
knowledge, and confident that they know what know- 
ledge is most required, they use public money for the 
building of schools and paying of teachers ; they print 
and publish State school-books ; they employ inspectors 
to see that their standard of education is conformed to. 
Playing the part of doctor, they insist that every one 
shall use their specific, and escape the danger of small- 
pox by submitting to an attack of cow-pox. Playing 
the part of moralist, they decide which dramas are fit 
to be acted, and which are not. Playing the part, of 
artist, they prompt the setting up of drawing-schools ; 
provide masters and models; and, at Marlborough 
House, enact what shall be considered good taste, and 
what bad. Through their lieutenants, the corporations 
of towns, they furnish appliances for the washing of 
people's skins and clothes ; they, in some cases, manu- 
facture gas, and put down water-pipes ; they lay out 
sewers, and cover over cess-pools ; they establish public 
libraries, and make public gardens. Moreover, they 
determine how houses shall be built, and what is a safe 
construction for a ship ; they take measures for the 
security of railway travelling; they fix the hour after 
which public-houses may not be open ; they regulate 
the prices chargeable by vehicles plying in the London 
streets ; they inspect lodging-houses ; they arrange for 
town burial-grounds; they fix the hours of factory 



ON POLITICAL EDUCATION. 299 

hands. In short, they aim to control and direct the 
entire national life. If some social process does not 
seem to them to be going on fast enough, they stimu- 
late it; where the growth is not in the mode or the 
direction which they think most desirable, they alter it ; 
and so they seek to realize some undefined ideal com- 
munity. 

Such being the task undertaken, what, let us ask, 
are the qualifications for discharging it .'' Supposing it 
possible to achieve all this (which we do not), what 
must be the knowledge and capacities of those who 
shall achieve it ? Successfully to prescribe for society, 
it is needful to know the structure of society — the 
principles on which it is organized — the natural laws 
underlying its progress. If there be not a true under- 
standing of what constitutes social development, there 
must necessarily be grave mistakes made in checking 
these changes and fostering those. If there be lack 
of insight respecting the mutual dependence of the 
many functions which, taken together, make up the 
national life, unforeseen disasters will ensue from not 
perceiving how an interference with one will affect 
the rest. If there be no knowledge of the natural 
conscnstis at any time subsisting in the social organism, 
there will of course be bootless attempts to secure ends 
which do not consist with its passing phase of organiza- 
tion. Clearly, before any effort to regulate the myriad 
multiform changes going on in a community, can be 
rationally made, there must be an adequate comprehen- 
sion of how these changes are caused, and in what way 
they are related to each other — how this entangled web 
of phenomena hangs together — how it came thus, and 
what it is becoming. That is to say, there must be a 



300 HERBERT SPENCER 

due acquaintance with the social science — the science 
involving all others ; the science standing above all 
others in subtlety and complexity ; the science which 
the highest intelligence alone can master. 

And now, how far do our legislators possess this 
qualification ? Do they in any moderate degree display 
it ? Do they make even a distant approximation to it ? 
That many of them are very good classical scholars is 
beyond doubt: not a few have written first-rate Latin 
verses, and can enjoy a Greek play; but there is no 
obvious relation between a memory well stocked with 
the words talked two thousand years ago, and an under- 
standing disciplined to deal with modern society. That 
in learning the languages of the past they have learnt 
some of its history, is true ; but considering that this 
history is mainly a narrative of battles and intrigues 
and negotiations, it does not throw much light on social 
philosophy — not even the simplest principles of political 
economy have ever been gathered from it. We do not 
question, either, that a moderate percentage of members 
of Parliament are fair mathematicians ; and that mathe- 
matical discipline is valuable. As, however, political 
problems are not suseeptible of mathematical analysis, 
their studies in this direction cannot much aid them in 
legislation. 

To the large body of military officers who sit as 
representatives, we would not for a moment deny a 
competent knowledge of fortification, of strategy, of 
regimental discipline, but we do not see that these 
throw much light on the causes and cure of national 
evils. Indeed, considering that all war is anti-social, 
and that the government of soldiers is necessarily de- 
spotic, military education and habits are more likely to 



ON POLITICAL EDUCATION. 3OI 

unfit than to fit men for regulating the doings of a free 
people. Extensive acquaintance with the laws, may 
doubtless be claimed by the many barristers and soli- 
citors chosen by our constituencies ; and this seems a 
kind of information having some relation to the work to 
be done. Unless, however, this information is more than 
technical — unless it is accompanied by a knowledge of 
the ramified consequences that laws have produced in 
times past, and are producing now (which nobody will 
assert), it cannot give much insight into Social Science. 
A familiarity with laws is no more a preparation for 
rational legislation, than would a familiarity with all the 
nostrums men have ever used, be a preparation for the 
rational practice of medicine. Nowhere, then, in our 
representative body, do we find^, appropriate culture. 
Here >is a . clever novelist, and there a successful maker 
of railways ; this member has acquired a large fortune 
in trade, and that member is noted as an agricultural 
improver ; but none of these achievements imply fitness 
for controlling and adjusting social processes. Among 
the many who have passed through the public school 
and university ciirricidiim — including though they may 
a few Oxford double-firsts and one or two Cambridge 
wranglers — there are none who have received the dis- 
cipline required by the true legislator. None have that 
competent knowledge of science in general, culmina- 
ting in the science of life, which alone can form a basis 
for the science of society. 

For it is one of those open secrets which seem the 
more secret because they are so open, that all phenomena 
displayed by a nation are phenomena of life, and are 
without exception dependent on the laws of life. There 
is no growth, decay, evil, improvement, or change of any 



302 HERBERT SPENCER 

kind, going on in the body politic, but what has its 
original cause in the actions of human beings ; and 
there are no actions of human beings but what conform 
to the laws of life in general, and cannot be truly under- 
stood until those laws are understood. We do not 
hesitate to assert, that without a knowledge of the laws 
of life, and a clear comprehension of the way in which 
they underlie and determine social growth and organi- 
zation, the attempted regulation of social life must end 
in perpetual failures. 

See, then, the immense incongruity between the end 
and the means. See, on the one hand, the countless 
difficulties of the gigantic task ; and, on the other hand, 
the almost total unpreparedness of those who undertake 
it. Need we wonder that legislation is ever breaking 
down ? Is it not natural that complaint, amendment, 
and repeal, should form the staple business of every 
session ? Is there anything more than might be ex- 
pected in the absurd Jack-Cadeisms which almost 
nightly disgrace the debates .' Even without setting up 
so high a standard of qualification as that above speci- 
fied, the unfitness of most representatives for their duties 
is abundantly manifest. You need but glance over the 
miscellaneous list of noblemen, baronets, squires, mer- 
chants, barristers, engineers, soldiers, sailors, railway- 
directors, etc., and then ask what training their previous 
lives have given them for the intricate business of legis- 
lation, to see at once how extreme must be the incom- 
petence. One would think that the whole system had 
been framed on the sayings of some political Dog- 
berry : — "The art of healing is difficult, the art of govern- 
ment easy. The understanding of arithmetic comes 
by study, while the understanding of society comes by 



ON POLITICAL EDUCATION. 303 

instinct. Watchmaking requires a long apprenticeship, 
but there needs none for the making of institutions. To 
manage a shop properly requires teaching; but the 
management of a people may be undertaken without 
preparation." 



Against this danger the only safeguards appear to be, 
the spread of sounder views among the working classes, 
and the moral advance which such sounder views imply. 

" That is to say, the people must be educated," re- 
sponds the reader. Yes, education is the thing wanted ; 
but not the education for which most men agitate. 
Ordinary school-training is not a preparation for the 
right exercise of political power. Conclusive proof of 
this is given by the fact that the artisans, from whose 
mistaken ideas the most danger is to be feared, are the 
best informed of the working classes. Far from pro- 
mising to be a safeguard, the spread of such education 
as is commonly given, appears more likely to increase 
the danger. Raising the working classes in general to 
the artisan-level of culture, rather threatens to augment 
their power of working political evil. The current faith 
in reading, writing, and arithmetic, as fitting men for 
citizenship, seems to us quite unwarranted: as are, in- 
deed, most other anticipations of the benefits to be derived 
from learning lessons. 

There is no connexion between the ability to parse a 
sentence, and a clear understanding of the causes that 
determine the rate of wages. The multiplication-table 
affords no aid in seeing through the fallacy that the 
destruction of property is good for trade. Long practice 



304 HERBERT SPENCER 

may have produced extremely good penmanship without 
having given the least power to understand the paradox, 
that machinery eventually increases the number of per- 
sons employed in the trades into which it is introduced. 
Nor is it proved that smatterings of mensuration, astro- 
nomy, or geography fit men for estimating the characters 
and motives of Parliamentary candidates. Indeed, we 
have only thus to bring together the antecedents and 
the anticipated consequents, to see how untenable is the 
belief in a relation between them. When we wish a girl 
to become a good musician, we seat her before the piano: 
we do not put drawing implements into her hands, and 
expect music to come along with skill in the use of 
pencils and colour-brushes. Sending a boy to pore over 
law-books, would be thought an extremely irrational way 
of preparing him for civil engineering. And if in these 
and all other cases, we do not expect fitness for any 
function except through instruction and exercise in that 
function, why do we expect fitness for citizenship to be 
produced by a discipline which has no relation to the 
duties of the citizen ? 

Probably it will be replied, that by making the work- 
ing man a good reader, we give him access to sources 
of information from which he may learn how to use 
his electoral power ; and that other studies sharpen his 
faculties and make him a better judge of political ques- 
tions. This is truej^nd the eventual tendency is un- 
questionably good.. But what if, for a long time to come, 
he reads only to obtain confirmation of his errors ? 
What if there exists a literature appealing to his pre- 
judices, and supplying him with fallacious arguments for 
the mistaken beliefs which he naturally takes up ? What 
if he rejects all teaching that aims to disabuse him of 



ON POLITICAL EDUCATION. 305 

cherished delusions ?/ Must Ave not say that the culture 
which thus merely nelps the workman to establish him- 
self in error, rather unfits than fits him for citizenship ? 
And do not the trades'-unions furnish us with examples 
cf this ? 

How little that which people commonly call education 
prepares them for the use of political power, may be 
judged from the incompetency of those who have re- 
ceived the highest education the country affords. Glance 
back at the blunders of our legislation, and then remem- 
ber that the men who committed them had mostly taken 
University degrees, and you must admit that the pro- 
foundest ignorance of social science may accompany 
intimate acquaintance with all that our cultivated classes 
regard as valuable knowledge. Do but take a young 
member of Parliament fresh from Oxford or Cambridge, 
and ask him what he thinks Law should do, and why ? 
or what it should not do, and why.? and it will become 
manifest, that neither his familiarity with Aristotle, nor 
his readings in Thucydides, have prepared him to answer- 
the very first question a . legislator ought to solve. A 
single illustration will suffice to show how different an 
education from that usually given, is required by legis- 
lators, and consequently by those who elect them ; we 
mean the illustration which the Free-trade agitation 
supplies. By kings, peers, and members of Parliament 
mostly brought up at universities, trade had been 
hampered by protections, prohibitions, and bounties. 
For centuries had been maintained these legislative ap- 
pliances, which a very moderate insight shows to be 
detrimental. Yet, of all the highlyeducated throughout 
the nation during these centuries, scarcely a man saw 
how mischievous such appliances were. Not from one 



'p(> HERBERT SPENCER 

who devoted himself to the most approved studies, came 
tiie work which sot politicians ri^i^^ht on these points; but 
from one who left college without a degree, and prose- 
cuted inquiries which the established education ignored. 
Adam Smith examined for himself the industrial phe-* 
nomena of societies ; contemplated the productive and 
distributive activities going on around him ; traced out 
their complicated mutual dependencies; and thus reached 
general principles for political guidance. In recent days, 
those who have most clearly understood the truths he 
enunciated, and by persevering exposition have converted 
the nation to their views, have not been graduates of 
universities. While, contrariwise, those who have passed 
through the prescribed curriculum, have commonly been 
the most bitter and obstinate opponents of the changes 
dictated by politico-economical science. In this all- 
important direction, right legislation was urged by men 
deficient in the so-called best education; and was resisted 
by the great majority of men who had received this so- 
called best education 1 

The truth for which we contend, and which is so 
strangely overlooked, is, indeed, almost a truism. Does 
nut our whole theory of training imply that the right 
l)rcparation for i)olitical power is political cultivation? 
Must not that teaching which can alone guide the citizen 
in the fulfilment of his public actions be a teaching that 
acquaints him with the effects of public actions } 

The second chief safeguard to which we must trust is, 
then, the spread, not of that mere technical and niiscel- 
lanc(nis knowledge which men are so eagerly propagating, 
but of political knowledge; or, to speak more accurately, 
knowledge of social science. Above all, the essential 
thing IS, the establishment of a true theory of govern- 



ON POLITICAL EDUCATION. 307 

mcnt — a true conception of what legislation is for, and 
what arc its proper limits. This question, which our 
political discussions habitually ignore, is a question of 
greater moment than any other. Inquiries which states- 
men deride- as speculative and unpractical, will one day 
be found infinitely more practical than those which they 
wade through Blue Books to master, and nightly spend 
many hours in debating. The considerations that every 
morning fill a dozen columns of The Times, arc mere 
frivolities when compared with the fundTmental con- 
sideration — ^What is the proper sphere of government ? 
Before discussing the way in which law should rcgulnte 
some particular thing, would it not be wise to put the 
previous question, whether law ought, or ought not, to 
meddle with that thing ? and before answering this, to 
put the more general question — What law should do, and 
what it should leave undone } Surely, if there arc any 
limits at all to legislation, the settlement of these limits 
must have effects far more profound than anyparticular 
Act of Parliament can have; and must be by so much 
the more momentous. Surely, if there is danger that 
the people m^y misuse political power, it is of supreme 
importance that they should be taught for what purpose 
political power ought alone to be used. 

Did the upper classes understand their position, they 
would, we think, see that the diffusion of sound views on 
this matter more nearly concerns their own welfare, and 
that of the nation at large, than any other thing what- 
ever. Popular influence will inevitably go on increasing. 
Should the masses gain a predominent power while tlieir 
ideas of social arrangements and legislative action re- 
main as crude as at present, there will certainly result 
disastrous meddlings with the relations of capital and 



308 HERBERT SPENCER ON POLITICAL EDUCATION. V 

labour, as well as a disastrous extension of State-|idmi^ 
nistrations. Immense damage will be inflicted : priniarTIy 
on employers ; secondarily on the employed ; and event- 
ually on the nation as a whole. These evils can be 
prevented, only by establishing in the public mind a 
profound conviction that there are certain comparatively 
narrow limits to the functions of the State; and that 
these limits ought on no account to be transgressed. 
Having first learned what these limits are, the upper 
classes ought energetically to use all means of teaching 
them to the people. . 



/ 



ON EARLY MENTAL TRAINING ANd"" 
THE STUDIES BEST FITTED FOR IT. 



F. A. P.^BARNARD, LL. D., 

PRESIDENT OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE. 

READ BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY CONVOCATION FOR 1866 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING, AND THE 
STUDIES FITTEST FOR IT. 

Whenever it happens that any subject interesting to 
man becomes matter of protracted controversy, the zeal 
of opposing parties often carries them so far, as to make 
both of them equally intolerant of one who is not wholly 
with themselves, though at the same time he may be by 
no means with their adversaries. The task, therefore, of 
one who undertakes to show — what is usually true — that 
to a certain extent both parties are in the right, while 
neither is wholly so, is by no means an easy one. He is 
very likely to incur the disapproval of both, while he is 
not sure to conciliate the favor of either. 

This consideration embarrasses me in the attempt I am 
about to make, to exhibit certain views connected with 
our system of higher education, founded upon convictions 
which have long been gradually growing upon me, but 
which I apprehend are not likely to be in full accordance 
with those of any considerable number of the experienced 
educators whom I have the pleasure of addressing. 

In the discussions which have taken place in our time 
with respect to the merits of our system of collegiate edu- 
cation, the field has been occupied almost exclusively by 
two parties holding opinions widely discordant ; so much 
so, indeed, as hardly to admit of any description of com- 
promise. One of these parties, which may properly be 
styled the conservative, has made classical learning its 



312 



DR. BARNARD ON 



watchword, and has steadily resisted the encroachments 
upon our time-honored course of modern science in all 
its branches. It has regarded every slight recognition 
which has been made of the value of this knowledge, as an 
unwise concession to popular clamor and a wrong done to 
the cause of education ; and has maintained, or if it spoke 
its full thought would doubtless maintain, that the colle- 
giate education of this country was vastly better at the 
close of the eighteenth century than it is now, in the mid- 
dle of the nineteenth. The other, which styles itself the 
progressive, and is styled by its opponents the destructive 
party, denounces with contempt a system which r&sts, as 
it asserts, upon a literature and a history which have long 
since ceased to have any living interest for the human 
race j and occupies itself with the painful study of lan- 
guages which exist only as literary curiosities, and which 
will never more be either spoken or written ; while, shut- 
ting its eyes to the condition of the living world of to-day, 
it treats as unworthy of notice the great discoveries which 
in recent times have revolutionized the aspect of society 
and transformed the whole surface of the planet, is indif- 
ferent to the great lessons of political and social science 
to be drawn from the fruitful pages of modern history, 
and finally flings its Sieves into the midst of the world's 
conflicts, as little prepared to deal with the real problems 
of life as if they had dropped from the moon. 

It is hardly necessary to say that the actual state of our 
educational system satisfies neither of these extreme 
classes. The former are chagrined that so much has 
been already lost ; the latter are discontented that so little 
has yet been won. But there has gradually been growing 
up a third class, limited as yet perhaps in numbers, who, 
without falling in the least behind the first of those just 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 



313 



described in their esteem for the ancient learning, have 
perceived that the time has come when that learning must 
abandon its claims to an absolute monopoly of the educa- 
tional field, and are now earnestly inquiring whereabouts 
in the educational course and to what extent it may prof- 
itably be superseded. It is to this class, small perhaps as 
yet in numbers and inconsiderable in weight of influence, 
to which I avow myself to belong. Hitherto the atten- 
tion of this class has been principally occupied with the 
teaching of colleges — taking it apparently for granted that 
the course of preparatory study, which is substantially the 
same everywhere, is susceptible of no material improvjp- 
ment and needs no essential modification. But it is pre- 
cisely at this point, as it seems to me, that modification is 
most necessary ; and it is here that I desire to suggest 
that a suitable modification may be at once the means of 
accomplishing more efficiently the general ends of educa- 
tion (which is of course the matter to be first looked af- 
ter), and of rendering at the same time instruction in clas- 
sical learning more productive than it is at present of tan- 
gible results. 

More productive, I say, of tangible results. For what 
are, in fact, the results which we do actually reach in the 
teaching of the classics at this time ? Are they in truth 
any thing like what we claim for them ? We hear, for 
instance, a great deal said of the intellectual treasures 
locked up in the languages of Greece and Rome, which 
it is asserted that our system of education throws open to 
the student freely to enjoy. And yet we know that prac- 
tically this claim is without foundation. It will not, 1 
presume, be affirmed of the graduates of American col- 
leges generally, that they become familiar with any por- 
tions of the literature of Rome and Greece, which do not 



SH 



DR. BARNARD ON 



form part of their compulsory reading. It will hardly be 
affirmed that one in ten of them does so. And why not ? 
The reason is twofold. First, there is hardly one in ten, 
in whose mind the classics ever cease to be associated with 
notions of painful labor. Reading is not therefore pur- 
sued beyond the limit of what is required, because it is 
not agreeable. But secondly and chiefly, there is hardly 
one in ten whose knowledge of the Latin or the Greek is 
ever sufficiently familiar to give him the command of the 
ancient literature which it is asserted for him that he en- 
joys. I suppose that to read with any satisfaction any 
^ork in any language, we should be able to give our at- 
tention to the ideas that it conveys, without being embar- 
rassed or confused by want of familiarity with the machin- 
ery through which they are imparted. It will not be for 
mere pleasure that we shall pursue our task, if every sen- 
tence brings us a new necessity to turn over our lexicons, 
or to reason out a probable meaning by the application of 
the laws of syntax. And yet, if there are any of our 
graduates who are able, without such embarrassments, to 
read a classical author, never attempted before, the num- 
ber must be very few. If there are any who can read 
even such books of Latin or Greek as they have read be- 
fore, with any thing like the fluency with which they read 
their mother tongue, the number cannot be large ; and if 
there are any who can read, with similar facility, classic 
works which they take up for the first time, it is so small 
that I have never seen one. 

It appears to me, then, that the results actually attained 
under our present system of instruction are neither very 
flattering nor very encouraging. We should certainly not 
have been so content with them as we seem, if we had 
not all along kept up before us the fiction that they are 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 



315 



not what they are, but what they ought to be. For a 
period varying from seven to ten years (four years in col- 
lege and from three to six in preparation), v/e keep young 
men under a course of instruction in Latin and Greek, 
and, at the end of that time, they are unable, in any 
proper sense, to read either the one or the other. Can 
a person be said to know a language which he cannot 
read ? And is it a result worth the time and labor ex- 
pended upon it to attain such a doubtful acquaintance with 
a language or any thing else, as that which the majority 
of our graduates carry away with them of these, at the 
close of their educational career ? Might not the same 
amount of time and labor differently employed have pro- 
duced at last something having a value at least apprecia- 
ble ? And is not the immense disproportion between labor 
expended and results obtained, itself the best evidence 
that this labor has not been expended most wisely for the 
accomplishment of its own avowed end ? For surely 
there cannot be any language, dead or living, in the known 
world, which any intelligent person ought not to be able 
to acquire, so as at least to read it, in a course ot ten 
years' study.* 

I know that we are continually informed, when we 
complain of the meagreness of the actual results reached 
in the classical teaching of our colleges, that it is not after 
all so much on account of the knowledge acquired that 

* It need hardly be said that there is no intention, in these remarks, to 
question the fact of the existence among us of accomplished and thorough 
classical scholars. That we have such, and not a few of them, I am proud to 
believe. But how many of them became so in school or in college ? That is 
the question immediately before us. Our scholars, as a rule, are self-made. 
Their scholarship is the growth of their maturer life. The observations of the 
text are to be understood of American students at their graduation as Bachelors 
of Arts — not later. 



3i6 



DR. BARNARD ON 



these studies are useful — it is because of the admirable 
intellectual discipline which they furnish, and which it is 
claimed for them that they only can furnish so well. 
This question we will waive for the moment ; but in the 
mean time we may take occasion to note that the educa- 
tionist who falls back upon this ground, admits in so doing, 
that the other is untenable, and that the value of these 
languages which has been so much insisted on, in opening 
up to the student all the choicest literary treasures of the 
v/orld of antiquity, is for the majority of our graduates 
practically zero. And the admission may as well be made, 
though in making it we shall reduce to the form of empty 
pretence, and rate as no better" than so much idle wind, a 
vast proportion of what has been written in eulogy of the 
educational uses of the classics. We may as well admit 
it, I say, because it is true ; and until we recognize the 
truth in regard to the condition of our educational instru- 
mentalities or methods, we can never proceed intelligently 
to make them better. Nor will it render the truth I insist 
on any the less positive, or the admission any the less ne- 
cessary, that there may be here and there exceptions to 
the general rule, that now and then there may be found a 
student whose eight or ten years' study of the ancient lan- 
guages may have really enabled him to read them. No 
one who claims this can claim that such cases are any 
thing but exceptions. Even in the British universities, 
v/here the preference given to classical study is greatly 
more decided than with us, and where its prosecution is 
stimulated by the promise of the most brilliant rewards, 
even there such cases, though naturally more numerous 
than nere, are only exceptional still. In fact, their system 
would almost seem to have been expressly made for the 
production of these exceptions, and nothing else, without 



jcARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 317 

the slightest thought of or regard for the greatest good of 
the greatest number j for certainly it could not have ac- 
complished the thing better, if it had been really devised 
v/ith that deliberate intent. No system of performing the 
work of education, or for performing any other work, can 
be called a good system, which fails with the great major- 
ity and succeeds only with the few. 

But then, if the argument so often used in defence of 
our system, derived from the great value of the classical 
knowledge it is presumed to impart, be fallacious, is not at 
least that which rests upon the disciplinary efficacy of clas- 
sical study more substantial ? Upon this point, again, 
there is some reason to believe that our educationists ac- 
cept too readily what might be for what is. If mental 
discipline consists in invigorating the mental faculties by 
wholesome exercise, and in training them to habits of 
method in exercise, it is indeed certain that the study of 
language, undertaken at the suitable stage in the process 
of culture, must prove a most efficacious instrumentality — 
perhaps the most efficacious of all — for accomplishing this 
object. But to place before the immature mind a subject 
which might possibly later call into exercise certain of its 
powers, say for instance comparison, judgment, reasoning, 
is not by any means to insure that, under the actual cir- 
cumstances, it will do so. It may hardly awaken an ac- 
tive faculty at all, and may remain merely matter of con- 
sciousness and memory. And especially is it probable 
that in early life the higher faculties, the reflective and 
reasoning powers, will fail to respond to the provocatives 
addressed to them, when those provocatives consist of 
abstractions which are not themselves conceived without 
effort. 

The first step, for Instance, In the process of reasoning, 



3i8 



DR. BARNARD ON 



is comparison. The easiest efforts of comparison are 
made when the objects are objects of simple perception ; 
and if Nature dictates any thing on the subject of educa- 
tion too plainly to admit of mistake, it is that children 
should first be taught to compare by the help of visible 
things. But if this plain dictate of Nature is disregarded, 
and we present to immature minds, as subjects of thought, 
definitions (for instance) of the parts of speech, or the 
distinctions between the dative and ablative case, the prob- 
ability is that no comparison or discrimination will be ex- 
ercised at all, and that the only faculty which will come 
into play will be the memory. I say the probability is, 
but I might better say the certainty ; and if personal ex- 
perience is worth any thing in the case, I may add that in 
one instance, at least, this certainty has been to me matter 
of knowledge. 

Valuable then as is the study of language for its educa- 
tional uses, it does not follow that it is so for the earliest 
stages of education. Still less, at that early period, will 
that language be found useful, of which the structure is 
the most complicated, the inflections the most numerous, 
the syntax the most artificial, and the order of words and 
clauses in a sentence the most widely contrasted v/ith that 
which prevails in the learner's own vernacular. And yet 
such a language possesses in the highest degree the proper- 
ties which make of lanG;uao;e a useful educational instru- 
mentality, provided the proper place be assigned to it in 
the educational course. 

There is a professor of physical training in New York 
who promises a wonderful development of the muscles of 
the arms and chest, to such as choose to practise under 
his direction for a few months in wielding certain ponder- 
ous clubs — thirty pounds, more or less, I believe, in weight. 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 



319 



He can point to some striking living examples of the suc- 
cess which has attended his method ; but I have never 
heard that he had placed his clubs in the hands of boys 
of ten years old. And so, when we impose on the intel- 
lects of boys, at the same tender age, a burden like that 
of the grammar of the Latin or the Greek language, we 
overtask them as much as we should overtask their bodily 
strength by requiring them to go through a gymnastic ex- 
ercise with a club of thirty pounds' weight. They can 
lift the burden no more in the one case than in the other. 
They do not lift it, though we may persuade ourselves 
that they do, because we tie them to it and leave them 
there. And by this I mean to say that the study of Latin 
and Greek, between the ages of eight and twelve (I have 
heard of cases in which the study began at six), does not 
really serve the educational purpose that it is supposed to 
do ; does not really occupy the reflective and reasoning 
powers of the mind, but exercises almost exclusively the 
memory. But then, if it does not do this, it does some- 
thing worse. It blinds us to the fact that the educational 
process is not going on at all, at the very most important 
and critical time in the youthful learner's life. It pre- 
vents us from perceiving that the mind which we are en- 
deavoring to train, refusing a task to which it is unequal, 
remains inactive, except in the very humblest of its facul- 
ties. It conceals from us the unhappy truth that the per- 
ceptive powers remain dormant or sluggish ; that the pow- 
ers of comparison, analysis, judgment, and reasoning, are 
never called into action ; and that the period of life when 
habits of careful observation are most easily formed, when 
in fact they must be formed, or never formed at all, is 
passing away unimproved. 

To me, therefore, it seems to be an error of very se- 



O20 DR. BARNARD ON 

lious gravity to suppose that the study of the ancient lan- 
guages at a very early period of life is a means of valuable 
and wholesome mental discipline. That study seems to 
me rather, at that time, to act as a sedative, repressing the 
activity of the higher mental powers, than as a stimulant 
awakening them to exertion. And no stronger corrobora- 
tion of the justice of this view could be presented than is 
to be found in the very moderate amount of attainment 
which appears in the end to be acquired, as the result of 
all this labor. The object of education, considered as a 
formative process, is not indeed directly the increase of 
knowledge. It is to form and not to inform the mind. 
13ut there is no process of formation which does not im- 
ply information. There is no species of mental exercise 
in which the understanding is not employed in the acqui- 
sition of new truths, or in forming new combinations of 
familiar truths, in such a manner as to enlarge the scope 
of our ideas. And in so far as the processes we call edu- 
cational fail to increase knowledge, although not planned 
with that express intent, in precisely so far they fail to ac- 
complish their proper end. There is then no impropriety 
in judging of the educational value of any study by con- 
sidering how much it has contributed to the learner's stock 
of positive knowledge, and what proportion this addition 
bears to the time which has been devoted to securing it. 
Now, imperfect as is the acquaintance of our college 
graduates with the languages which occupy so largely their 
attention throughout their whole educational course, there 
is no doubt that the greater part of what they know of 
them is acquired after they become members of college. 
And yet, considering the cxclusivcncss with which, in the 
preparatory schools, they arc confined to these subjects of 
study, there is as little doubt that the time they expend on 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 021 

them in those schools exceeds in most cases, and very 
much exceeds in many, all that they can give to them 
afterward. That is to say, in the earlier years the study 
is comparatively barren of results ; it fails to impart an 
amount of knowledge bearing any fair proportion to the 
amount of time expended on it. And this fact is suffi- 
cient proof in itself that the disciplinary value of the study, 
at that period of the education, cannot be what has been 
claimed for it. 

I shall be very much misunderstood if I am supposed, 
because of what I have said, to undervalue classical learn- 
ing. I shall be misunderstood if I am supposed to desire 
to exclude the classics from our course of liberal educa- 
tion. No one places a higher estimate upon the ancient 
learning than I do.* No one feels more sensibly than I 
the force of all the arguments which have been urged in 
its favor. The influence which the perusal of the many 

* It seems wortli wliile to insist a little upon this point. There is a great 
deal that is sensible and well worth attention uttered by the class of educa- 
tional controversialists who take tlie greatest pains to display their contempt of 
classical learning ; but this fails to impress their opponents, because their hete- 
rodoxy upon the point esteemed most vitally important discredits them with 
these upon every other. The writer is not to be confounded with such. He 
has labored as earnestly as any man in vindication of the claims of classical 
learning to the prominent place which it holds in our system of higher educa- 
I tion — a place which lie hopes to see it still maintain. But there is certainly 
danger, and a daily increasing danger, that it will lose this pre-eminence ; and 
this appears to the writer to be inevitable, unless some such reform as is rec- 
ommended above shall be introduced into the earlier periods of the educational 
course. So far, therefore, is the writer in what he has said from meditating 
any assault upon the classics, that he honestly believes that the prevalence of 
the views here advocated, and the practical consequences which would follow, 
would do more than any thing else to fortify them against assault, and to quiet 
the growing disposition to assail them. This belief may be a mistaken one ; 
but however that may be, its existence is an evidence that the foregoing re« 
marks and reasonings arc dictated by a friendly and not by a hostile spirit. 



22 DR. BARNARD ON 

models of literary excellence which it furnishes upon the 
formation of a correct taste in letters, the pleasure which 
the perusal of such affords to those who are able to read 
them freely in their original tongues, the importance of an 
acquaintance with the ancient languages to the correct 
understanding and scholarly use of our own, the many 
modes in which the history of ancient polity and ancient 
thought has affected the course of events in more recent 
times, in the political no less than in the intellectual world 
— these considerations, and others like them, will ever se- 
cure for the ancient learning a large space in any judicious 
system of liberal mental culture. Nor do I in the least 
question that the disciplinary value of these studies, con- 
sidered as furnishing a wholesome mental gymnastics, is, 
when introduced at the right time and in the right place, 
all that has been claimed for them. What I maintain is 
that the right time is not, as the prevailing practice as- 
sumes, the period of emergence from childhood, and the 
right place is not at the very beginning of the educational 
course. By giving them the false position which they at 
present occupy, we seem to me to accomplish three evils 
at the same time. First, we fail to secure any thing like 
such a degree of attainment in the classics themselves, as 
the labor bestowed upon them ought to produce j secondly, 
we prevent the learner from acquiring much substantially 
useful knowledge, for which no opportunity so fitting will 
again occur ; and thirdly — which is most important of all 
— we display a singular disregard of the plain indications 
of Nature, who herself points out the order in which the 
faculties should be drawn out into action. 

Curiosity is the most marked mental characteristic of 
childhood. This trait manifests itself in the thousand 
questions with whtcli the child assails and often annovs all 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING. -^23 

those who surround him. It manifests itself in the exu- 
berant and enthusiastic delight with which he overflows at 
the sight of every new thing. It manifests itself in the 
eagerness with which he lays hold of and scrutinizes every 
object within his reach which he does not understand. 
It manifests itself in the interest with which he traces the 
simplest effects to their immediate causes. It manifests 
itself in his lively sensibility to all the impressions of 
sense. It manifests itself in the activity of his observa- 
tion of all the minute particulars of every new scene. 

All these things serve to show how remarkably at this 
period of life the perceptive faculties are in advance of the 
others in the order of development. They furnish proof, 
if proof were needed, of what is Nature's educational 
plan. And as it is sometimes permitted us to discover the 
wisdom of the order which the Supreme Creator has es- 
tablished to govern the works of His hands, so here we 
perceive of how inappreciable importance to the welfare 
of the race is the fact that the predominant characteristic 
of the infant mind is the instinctive desire to know, and 
how favorable to the rapid multiplication of ideas is the 
restless activity of the perceptive . powers which accompa- 
nies this desire. For the child comes into the world totally 
ignorant. Even the simplest facts which it concerns his 
immediate personal safety to know, are to be acquired by 
him by observation and experience. That fire is hot and 
that ice is cold, that the moon is more distant than the 
candle, and that the candle is more agreeable to look at 
than to touch ; these are rudimentary truths which it is 
useless to tell him — he must learn them for himself. And 
in the same way all his elementary knowledge, of what- 
ever description, must be acquired. Much of this is an 
acquisition earlier than language. It must be so, for Ian- 



324- DR' BARNARD ON 

guage is but symbolic of ideas^ and signs will not be used 
until there is something to be signified. In the earliest 
period of life, therefore, oral teaching is impossible. No 
medium exists through which it can be conveyed. The 
instructions of the parent or the nurse must be limited to 
the endeavor to enlarge the child's vocabulary by associa- 
ting in his mind visible objects or recognizable expressions 
of emotion in the countenance or gesture, with the sounds 
by which these are recalled in language. To attempt to 
expound to him one word by the help of others, is an ab- 
surdity never thought of. And even after language has 
been acquired, sufficient for the ordinary purposes of life, 
it holds for a long time but a subordinate place as an in- 
strument of instruction. It may be employed with great 
effect to direct and assist the powers of observation, but 
if relied on solely as a means of conveying new ideas, the 
result cannot fail to be unsatisfactory. Objects, facts, 
phenomena, must themselves be directly presented to the 
learner, or there will be no substantial growth in knowl- 
edge. Seeing thus the absolute dependency of the child 
upon his own unaided perceptive powers for all his earliest 
knowledge, and seeing to how very great a degree he con- 
tinues long to be dependent upon the exercise of the same 
powers for his subsequent advancement, we easily recog- 
nize the admirable wisdom of that provision of the Crea- 
tor by which these powers, first of all and in the very 
dawn of life, spontaneously awaken, and manifest after- 
ward through all the earlier years of existence, an activity 
which never tires and which will not be repressed. 

Now, I hold it to be the first principle of a sound edu- 
cational philosophy, that the powers of the mind should 
be subjected to culture in the most natural order ; and 
what I understand by natural order, is the order in which 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 



325 



the powers unfold themselves when they are subjected to 
no artificial control at all. If this is not the test of what 
is natural, then we have no test. And I suppose that the 
reason why we should follow Nature, is because Nature 
will thus most willingly follow us. The tasks we impose 
will be pleasing, because they will be adapted to the 
strength. The learner will easily submit himself to our 
guidance, because we take him in the direction in which 
he is already inclined to go. He will understand what we 
require of him, and he will be encouraged because he un- 
derstands. 

I do not mean to assert that any judicious course of in- 
struction can be devised which shall present nothing but a 
series of unmingled delights. I am not of the visionary 
class who believe that continuous mental effort will ever, 
under any system, be attended, for the majority of indi- 
viduals, with the same exhilaration and eagerness of spirit 
with which the same individuals are found to pursue the 
athletic sports by which their physical powers may be de- 
veloped. They who, like Herbert Spencer, take such a 
ground as this, only injure the cause they would befriend, 
and weaken the force of their otherwise unanswerable ar- 
guments. The effort which is useful, whether it be phys 
ical or mental, must always partake of the character of 
labor, and labor brings with it sometimes weariness and 
pain. But what I do say is, that the labor need not be 
made a repulsive labor, as it always must be when it brings 
with it no recognizable, or at least no adequate profit ; but 
may be made so richly productive as actually to become 
positively attractive. 

Now, in what I have just said, I believe there is noth- 
ing which is not, in the abstract, perfectly orthodox — 
nothing which will not meet the approval of every educa 



326 



DR. BARNARD ON 



tionist who hears me. I wish to inquire, therefore, to 
what extent it is practically true, that in our established 
system of liberal culture we conform to the order which 
Nature points out to us ? Is it true that we make the 
development and training of the perceptive faculties the 
first object of our attention f Is it, as it ought to be, our 
first great aim to improve the powers of observation, of 
analysis, of induction, of classification ? Are all the stud- 
ies which we prescribe to boys, as preparatory to their 
introduction to the abstruser subjects of grammar, and 
logic, and ethics, and rhetoric, and metaphysics', directed 
to this end ? Is there even a single one of them that is ? 
We know that it is not so. Beyond those most elemen- 
tary branches of knowledge which are indispensable as 
furnishing the implements by which all other knowledge is 
to be acquired — beyond orthography and reading and wri- 
ting, the simplest rules of arithmetic, and perhaps some 
imperfect outlines of geography — to the great majority of 
the youth of this country destined for college, nothing at 
all is taught of any description, before they are required 
to devote themselves exclusively to the study of the most 
difficult languages ever spoken by man, and this by the 
most difficult of processes — the purely synthetic. They 
follow up this species of study for several years. Few 
follow it cheerfully, for few follow it intelligently. Their 
progress is slow. The average attainment at the end of 
three, four, or more years is far from being what it should 
be — ^faj from what it might be could they have entered 
upon It with a proper preliminary training. Yet we do 
not appreciate the insignificance of the result, because the 
system itself has created a mean standard, according to 
which our expectations are justified. 

They arc then advanced to the college. The same 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 



327 



subjects occupy them here as before, with the addition 
mainly of mathematics, logic, and rhetoric, for two years 
longer 5 and then finally, as they approach the close of 
their educational career, they are for the first time intro- 
duced to the sciences of observation and experiment. That 
is to say, we have inverted the natural order just as com- 
pletely as possible, placing those subjects which address 
themselves to the faculties earliest awake, at the very con- 
clusion of the course. And this inversion of the order 
of Nature, carries with it the unfortunate consequence that 
no satisfactory knowledge is acquired at last, either of the 
sciences or of the languages. A large portion of my own 
life has been devoted to the teaching of physics. During 
all this time it has been manifest to me that my classes 
have come to this part of their course totally unpractised 
how to observe. And it has seemed to me that their per- 
ceptive faculties have been actually dwarfed by the forced 
inaction to which they have -been constrained during the 
period most favorable to their cultivation. Thus it has 
happened that the brief time which can only be given to 
these subjects in the college course has been exhausted in 
the attempt to convey such elementary notions as should 
have been familiar long before. And the same obser- 
vation has been made to me by other gentlemen who 
are among the most skilled instructors in science that I 
have ever known. If, then, I am asked if I w^ould dis- 
place these subjects from the position they occupy in the 
course of collegiate instruction, I would answer, by no 
means. What I would desire would be to secure such an 
early culture, and such an acquaintance with the elements 
of science, that it might be permitted us to give, at this 
more advanced period, such larger views and such pro- 
founder applications of the principles of these sciences. 



328 DR. BARNARD ON 

that the Student might feel, in the end, that he had ac- 
quired some mastery over them, and might be quahficd to 
prosecute inquiry independently and profitably after he had 
mastered them. 

Probably the faults of our present system of liberal ed- 
ucation result to a great degree from the fact that our 
young men are in too great haste to be educated. It does 
not seem to me that the system can be radically reformed 
until our colleges shall decline to receive students below 
the age of seventeen or eighteen years. Some of them, 
perhaps a majority, have placed their minimum age at four- 
teen. Some of them have no provision of law upon the 
subject at all ; but all receive candidates who give evi- 
dence of having read a certain limited amount of Latin 
and Greek. The other qualifications required are exceed- 
ingly moderate and are not very severely insisted on. Nor, 
though there are some who enter later in life, is it possi- 
ble to secure to such the advantage this fact should bring 
with it. The course of study prescribed must be the 
same for all, and must not be beyond the capacity of the 
youngest. In the British universities, the average age of 
students at admission is, according to the reports of the 
royal commissioners, about eighteen years and a half. 
Were it the same with us, or were it a year less, there 
would be ample time in the earlier years for such a course 
of preliminary training as to insure, what we by no means 
now insure, a thorough education. But even without any 
such modification of our exactions as to age, there is still 
room for a sensible improvement of the existing state of 
things. And having said this, I shall probably be ex- 
pected to state specifically what are the improvements 
which I consider practicable. 

First, then, I would say that I believe that boys should 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 



329 



not, as a rule, be required to take up the study of Latin 
before the age of fourteen or fifteen years. The earlier 
years may be much more profitably employed in other 
things ; and if so employed, the study of the ancient lan- 
guages may afterward be pursued much more rapidly and 
much more intelligently. It is a fact which has been fre- 
quently observed, which every teacher has probably ob- 
served for himself, that youths who have even not had the 
advantage of early systematic training, but possess only 
the greater maturity of the faculties which comes with 
advancing years, and who, at a period much later than the 
average, have resolved to fit themselves for admission to 
college, have been able to accomplish all that is required 
in a singularly short space of time, often within the com- 
pass of a single year. And such students, when of ordi- 
nary native ability, have usually approved themselves 
among the most thorough linguists of the classes to which 
they belonged. There is no doubt that two years is as 
good as two dozen for the acquisition of all that our col- 
leges require of preparation in the classics, provided vio- 
lence be not done to Nature by forcing the study upon 
minds unprepared to receive it. 

During the earlier period, now occupied with weary, 
and to a great degree profitless, labor over uncongenial 
studies, I would introduce, first, the sciences of classifica- 
tion, embraced under the general name of Natural His- 
tory — as botany, zoology, mineralogy. No subjects are 
better suited than these to gratify the eager curiosity of 
the growing mind j to satisfy its cravings after positive 
knowledge ; to keep alive the activity of the perceptive 
powers ; to illustrate the beauty and value of method, and 
to lead to the formation of methodical habits of thought. 
That these subjects will interest children of very early 



!30 



DR. BARNARD ON 



years, and that such children will require no painful con- 
straint to secure their attention to them, I have myself 
seen experimentally verified j and the testimony of Pro- 
fessor Hooker, before the royal commissioners appointed 
to inquire into the condition of the public schools of Eng- 
land, in regard to the success of his distinguished relative. 
Prof. Henslow, in giving instruction in the same subjects 
in one of the humblest schools of England, is conclusive 
to the same effect. The lessons of Professor Henslow 
were given to children between the ages of eight and fif- 
teen. The attendance was altogether voluntary. The 
children became deeply interested in the subject of bot- 
any, learned to analyze and classify plants, to distinguish 
the relations of the parts of plants to each other, and of 
one plant to another. The result was a very obvious im- 
provement in the powers of observation and of reasoning, 
and an increase of general intelligence. These effects 
were so sensibly manifest, that some of the inspectors of 
the schools remarked that these children were decidedly 
more intelligent than those of other parishes, and attribu- 
ted the fact to the training which their observant and rea- 
soning powers had received from this instruction. 

Along with these sciences, I would teach those which 
depend on observation and experiment, embracing chem- 
istry and the various branches of physics. As in natural 
history we have classification of individuals referred to 
form, so here we have classification of facts and phenom- 
ena referred to law. These sciences present the happiest 
examples of reasoning in both the inductive and deductive 
forms. They lead to the formation of habits of arrang- 
ing premises and deducing conclusions which accord most 
with the daily exigencies of human life, and thus promote 
that soundness of judgment which is among the most 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 



3JJ 



striking characteristics of practical men. Of course, it is 
not to be expected or desired that, in the early period of 
education, these sciences should be pursued into their ab- 
struser developments. The deductive part of physics in- 
volves, in many portions, the application of the higher 
mathematics, and opens up branches of inquiry vi'hich 
must be left to be supplied at a more advanced period ; 
but that which is simply inductive addresses itself to the 
senses, and not only may be easily understood, but never 
fails to prove intensely interesting even to very young 
learners. 

So much as is here suggested, is actually required as a 
qualification for admission to King's College, London, or 
for matriculation in the London University. The emi- 
nent physiologist, Dr. Carpenter, who is one of the exam- 
iners for the London University, in his evidence before 
the commission already referred to, speaks of the requisi- 
tion as most important and useful. And the opinions ex- 
pressed by him are supported by the unanimous voice of 
all the other witnesses of the same class who speak to the 
point, embracing some of the most distinguished physicists 
of England, and presenting a weight of authority entitled 
to the highest respect. Among these we find the names 
of Lyell, Hooker, Faraday, Owen, Airy, and Ackland. 
We have these names, because these gentlemen were 
summoned before the commission. But it is assuming 
very little to say that we might have had along with them 
those of every eminent physicist in England, had they all 
been in like manner called upon for their evidence. 

The adaptedness of this class of subjects to the mental 
wants of boys in the earlier period of their education, and 
its fitness, therefore, to fasten their attention and keep 
ilivc their mental activity, is manifested in the earnest in- 



332 



DR. BARNARD ON 



terest they display in any description of phys/cai cr chem- 
ical experiments, and in the eagerness with which they 
will endeavor to imitate such and contrive new ones. It 
is manifest in the curiosity they exhibit to witness the ac- 
tion and to understand the rationale of every new machine 
which falls in their way, and in the efforts to invent or to 
construct for themselves, which form a part of the early 
history of almost every youth. It is interesting to any 
one to be introduced at any time of life into a great cot- 
ton-mill or foundery, or manufactory of any description 
which he has never seen before, but to a young lad, whose 
observant pov/ers are in the morning of their development, 
and who possesses the lively impressibility belonging to 
that early age, such a visit is a source of delight beyond 
all measure, and it is often found almost impossible to tear 
him away from objects which so fill him with admiration 
and gratify his desire to know. 

If it were proper here to refer to matters of personal 
history, in illustration of what I have asserted of the fit- 
ness of the sciences of Nature to occupy the place of pre- 
cedence in an educational system founded upon that sound 
philosophy which consults first the demands of Nature, I 
would say that the point of my own life to which, at a 
distance of more than forty years, I look back as that in 
which my education truly began, was that at which, while 
engaged in the irksome study of the dead languages, which 
for the seven years preceding my admission to college, 
crushed me down like an incubus, I had an opportunity to 
attend a course of lectures on chemistry, rfiagnetism, and 
electricity by an itinerant lecturer. It seemed to me that 
a new world had suddenly been revealed to me. From 
that time forward I could think of nothing else. It was 
my constant amusement, with such rude materials as I 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 333 

could gather, to repeat the experiments which I had seen, 
and to endeavor to devise new ones. Cut ofF from books 
of my own on those subjects, I improved my time during 
the holidays which permitted me to visit home, in devour- 
ing the text-books of a sister, who, being superior to me 
in age, was pursuing in her own school, subjects which, 
according to the received theory, are more advanced than 
those then allowed to me — that is to say, the dead lan- 
guages. In assuming, therefore, that those subjects are 
the subjects best suited to early mental culture, I do not 
merely put forth opinions founded on considerations a 
priori^ I speak with the conviction which results from ac- 
tual experience. 

But these subjects are recommended not only on educa 
tional grounds, but because they embody in themselves a 
vast amount of substantial knowledge, such as cannot fail 
to be of the highest practical usefulness in life. They 
relate to the real and material world by which man is sur- 
rounded, and in the midst of which he lives. Whatever 
may be the value of the study of the classics in a sub- 
jective point of view, nothing could possibly more thor- 
oughly unfit a man for any immediate usefulness in this 
matter-of-fact world, or make him more completely a 
stranger in his own home, than the purely classical educa- 
tion which used recently to be given, and which with 
some slight improvement is believed to be still given, by 
the universities of England. This proposition is very hap- 
pily enforced by a British writer, whose strictures on the 
system appeared in the London Thnes some twelve or thir- 
teen years ago : 

" Common things are quite as much neglected and de- 
spised in the education of the rich as in that of the poor. 
It is wonderful how little a young gentleman m.ay \.x\o\v 



334 



DR. BARNARD ON 



when he has taken his university degrees, especially If he 
has been industrious^ and has stuck to his studies. He may 
really spend a long time in looking for somebody more ig- 
norant than himself. If he talks with the driver of the 
stage-coach, that lands him at his father's door, he finds 
he knows nothing of horses. If he falls into conversation 
with a gai'dener, he knows nothing of plants or flowers. 
If he walks into the fields, he does not know the differ- 
ence between barley, rye, and wheat ; between rape and 
turnips ; between lucerne and saintfoin ; between natural 
and artificial grass. If he goes into a carpenter's yard, he 
does not know one wood from another. If he comes 
across an attorney, he has no idea of the difference be- 
tween common and statute law, and is wholly in the dark 
as to those securities of personal and political liberty on 
which we pride ourselves. If he talks with a county 
magistrate, he finds his only idea of the office is, that the 
gentleman is a sort of English sheik, as the mayor of the 
neighboring borough is a sort of cadi. If he strolls into 
any workshop, or place of manufacture, it is always to 
find his level, and that a level far below the present com- 
pany. If he dines out, and as a youth of proved talents, 
and perhaps university honors, is expected to be literary, 
his literature is confined to a few popular novels — the nov- 
els of the last century, or even of the last generation, his- 
tory, and poetry, having been almost studiously omitted in 
his education. The girl who has never stirred from home, 
and whose education has been economized, not to say neg- 
lected, in order to send her own brother to college, knows 
vastly more of those things than he does. The same ex- 
posure awaits him wherever he goes, and whenever he has 
the audacity to open his mouth. Jt sea he is a landluhb,er^ 
in the country a cockney^ /« toivn a gree7thorn^ in science an 
ignoramus^ in business a si7npleton^ in pleasure a milksop — 
everywhere out of his element, everywhere at sea, in the 
clouds, adrift, or by whatever word utter ignorance and 
incapacity are to be described. In society and in the work 
of life, he finds himself beaten by the youth whom at col- 
lege he despised as frivolous or abhorred as profligate. He 



KARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 335 

Is ordained, and takes charge of a parish, only to be 
laughed at by the farmers, the tradespeople, and even the ^ 
old women, for he can hardly talk of religion without be- 
traying a want of common sense." 

I know that with a pretty large class of educational phi- 
losophers, when methods of education are under discussion, 
the word usefulness has long been tabooed. I know that 
with such, to speak of a subject of study as likely to be 
productive of direct and practical and tangible benefit to 
the learner in the real business of life, is to bring that sub- 
ject immediately under suspicion, if not to insure its sum- 
mary condemnation without any examination of its claims. 
I cannot but hold, on the contrary, that if we can find 
any subject which, while it is capable of affording the 
most salutary intellectual exercise, is also certain to enrich 
the student with a store of knowledge of that very kind 
of which he is going to feel the need every day of his life, 
then this subject should have a place in our educational 
schemes in preference to any which can only claim the 
first of these advantages without possessing the second at 
all. 

The kind of lofty contempt or aversion to subjects rec- 
ommended for their practical utility, which is manifested 
by the class of educators to which I have referred, ap- 
pears to be founded upon an assumption which has been 
so long taken for granted, that for them it has passed into 
a kind of axiom, and that is, that a subject of knowledge 
which is adapted to educational uses cannot be, or at least 
is extremely unlikely to be, of any other direct use in tne 
world ; and conversely, that a subject which is self-evi- 
dently practically useful can by no possibility have any 
educational use whatever. According to them, therefore, 
as it has been very well remarked before, Nature seems in 



33^ 



DR. BARNARD ON 



respect to this particular matter to have deviated from that 
rule of severe economy vi^hich distinguishes her every- 
w^here else, and to have ordained a necessity for two sets 
of machinery vv^here one might have sufficed — ordained, 
that is, that the mind shall require one class of studies for 
subjective culture, and another class for its furniture — one 
class to make it fit for w^ork, and another class to provide 
for it material to work upon. The fallacy of this doc- 
trine has been so well exposed by abler hands — notably 
by Dr. Hodgson, of England, and by Mr. Atkinson in 
our own country — that I will not dwell upon it here. I 
mention it only for the purpose of entering my protest 
against any disparagement of the studies which I would 
recommend as preparatory to college, to be deduced from 
the consideration that they have upon them the taint of 
possible usefulness. 

I have dwelt somewhat at length upon the subjects of 
study which have occupied us thus far, because of their 
pre-eminent importance and their adaptation to a special 
culture now wholly neglected, and not because I consider 
them, in themselves, sufficient in the business of prepara- 
tion for college. There is no period in a course of edu- 
cation in which it is not important to vary the labor, and 
to relieve the tension upon one class of faculties by call- 
ing another into action. There are certain subjects which 
are now professedly required, although seldom made sub- 
jects of any searching examination — hardly, perhaps, ex- 
amined upon at all — but of which, in the language of one 
of the resolutions of Convocation adopted at the last an- 
nual meeting, the knowledge is rather " presupposed." 
Among these are " arithmetic, English grammar, descrip- 
tive geography, and the history of the United States." To 
presuppose a knowledge of these things, without employ- 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 



337 



ing pretty thorough measures to ascertain that the pre- 
sumption is justified, impHes a tolerably strong exercise of 
faith, and requires that, like the marchioness in the " Cu- 
riosity Shop," one should "make believe a great deal." 
The experientce of every college officer vj^ill, I think, bear 
me out in the assertion .that, notwithstanding the length of 
time spent by most lads in preparatory study, there is al- 
ways a large proportion who struggle to secure admission 
into college on the very minimum of attainment allowa- 
ble ; so that, when they know so little of the subjects on 
which they are sure of being examined, it is not quite safe 
to " presuppose " that they will know any thing at all of 
those on which they hope to escape examination. These 
subjects I would still insist on, and would insist also that 
we should adopt effectual means of insuring that they re- 
ceive proper attention. And to these I would add plane 
geometry, so much of algebra as includes equations of the 
second degree, and finally the French and German lan- 
guages. Time admonishes me not to attempt here the 
discussion of the propriety of all these suggestions. I 
will limit myself to assigning briefly my reasons for the 
last. 

And here I would observe that the popular idea which 
limits the educational growth of the man to the period of 
scholastic discipline, is one which will not be entertained 
by any member of this Convocation. What the school 
and the college accomplish for the individual who enjoys 
their advantages, is to fit him to take his education into 
his own hands. No man who remains stationary at the 
point where the college leaves him can ever be distin- 
guished in any vocation, or prove a successful, laborer in 
any part of the intellectual field. When in the view of 

the world the education of the youth is completed, we 
16 



338 



DR. BARNARD ON 



must regard it, in its highest and most appropriate sense, 
as only just begun. In order, therefore, that it may pro- 
ceed successfully, the student must be in possession of 
certain instrumentalities, which he will henceforth find 
indispensable to every effective step of progress. And 
among these instrumentalities, none is more essentially 
important than a knowledad^ of those languages in which, 
along with his own, is embodied the richest literature of 
modern times upon all sul^cts of interest to man. As the 
commonest education exacts, as a condition antecedent, the 
power to read at least one language, so the highest de- 
mands a similar power f©r moreVthan one ; and the student 
whose tastes, or whose ambltiofi, or yhose sense of duty 
impels him to aim unceasingly ^t progress, should he have 
neglected the study of the mocfe'rn languages till the close 
of his collegiate career, will l^d himself arrested or se- 
riously embarrassed, at the veryAj^tset of his independent 
labors, by the impossibility of consulting authorities, or of 
keeping himself advised of the simultaneous labors of oth- 
ers. Neglects, I say, to the close of his collegiate career^ 
for if he neglects these subjects before he becomes a mem- 
ber of college, that is what he is practically pretty sure to 
do ; since there is no college known to me in which the 
modern languages form, much more than in name, a part 
of the regular teaching. It should not be forgotten that 
the knowledge of French and German which the scholar 
or the scientific man of this day needs, is not such a 
knowledge as that which our graduates usually possess of 
Latin and Greek — a knowledge, that is to say, which does 
not permit them to read those languages with fluency — a 
fluency something like that with which they read tjieir 
mother tongue. It must be a real knowledge, such a 
knowledge as frees them effectually from slavery to gram- 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 



339 



mars and lexicons. Surely the acquisition of such a 
knowledge, which to the man who is to b'e really educated 
is absolutely a sine qua non^ may much better be com- 
menced in early life, when the other implements essential 
to mental progress are acquired, than deferred to the pe- 
riod to which, unfortunately, so many defer it, when it 
forms an obstruction to mental progress in mid career — 
an obstruction which must be removed with mucli annoy- 
ing and impatient labor before the student is ready to make 
a single further step of advance. 

But it may be inquired, if foreign languages are to be 
made part of the .early discipline, what becomes of the 
objection to Latin and Greek, as unsuited to the powers 
of the juvenile learner ? The reply is twofold — first, 
these languages by no means present the difficulties to the 
learner which are characteristic of Latin and Greek. 
They are less complicated in structure, and, at least in the 
case of the French, far less different in their usages from 
our own. But secondly and chiefly, the objection to the 
Latin and Greek is to be found quite as much in the ste- 
reotyped modes of presenting them — modes which it is 
probably vain to expect to alter, and which need not be 
altered, if we defer the teaching to a period a little later — 
as to the nature of the lano-uages themselves. The modes 
of teaching which I believe are universally prevalent, arc 
after the severest fashion synthetic. They are as totally 
unsuited to the state of mental development of the juve- 
nile learner as they could by any possibility be made. 
And this fact, apart from the difficulties inherent in the 
languages themselves, is, in my mind, quite decisive of the 
question. 

The prevalent modes of teaching the modern languages 
are not synthetic, or are so to a much less degree. Those 



o^o I^I<- BARNARD ON 

employed with young learners ought not to be so, and 
certainly need not be. 

To this it may be added, that if there were no differ- 
ence between the two classes of languages in the respects 
which have just been indicated, and were the modern lan- 
guages in this part of the course just as objectionable in 
their subjective relations as the ancient, there is this, at 
least, to be said in favor of the former, which is not at all 
true of the others, that they will probably be really mas- 
tered before they are done with, and will certainly be of 
some practical use after they are mastered. 

If up to the age of fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen years — 
preferably the last — a lad shall have been subjected to the 
training indicated in the foregoing remarks, he will then 
be in condition to take up, profitably, along with the stud- 
ies above enumerated, the Latin, and somewhat later, the 
Greek language. I am not quite sure that it might not be 
well to drop from the preparatory course the Greek alto- 
gether, and to leave that study wholly to the college. That 
is a question at which I will merely hint without discuss- 
ing it. In such a case, the omission would be with a view 
to make the preparation in Latin more thorough. And 
considering the great help which may be derived, in the 
study of this language, from the knowledge of the lan- 
guages (especially of the French) already acquired, there 
can be no doubt that a single additional year of study 
would result in a more satisfactory preparation for college 
than is now obtained in three, or four, or five. Thus 
there could be secured, along with a vast and valuable fund 
of real knowledge, an immense economy of time. 

Furthermore, I cannot but be convinced that such a 
preparatory training would render the collegiate course 
greatly more profitable than it is at present •, and still fur- 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 



341 



ther, that classical scholarship itself, whose peculiar friends 
and champions may be disposed to see in all that h^s been 
said, nothing but a tissue of dangerous heresies, would be 
improved to that extent that it might become no very un- 
common thing among us to find a graduate who should 
really be able to read Latin and Greek. 

In conclusion, I have to advert to one serious fact which 
is always a subject of discouragement to me when I think 
of the possibility of a reform of the higher education in 
our country. It is this. There are between two hundred 
and two hundred and fifty institutions in the United States 
which are chartered as colleges. Any movement which 
any one of these, or any limited number of these may 
make, in the direction of larger exactions as qualifications 
for Admission, is likely to result, not in the hoped-for im- 
provement of the system, but in driving students from 
their own doors to those of their more accommodating 
neighbors. The colleges of New York, bound together 
in a kind of federal league, with the advantage of a com- 
mon supervisory board, might act unitedly ; and if New 
York were isolated in the world — cut off by an ocean 
from other States, or severed by difference of language 
and political institutions from the peoples on its borders — 
they might act with effect. As we are actually situated, 
it would be no very difficult thing to improve our system 
of education at the expense of our existence. 

It is unfortunately true of a very large proportion of our 
young men that they desire not so much an education as 
the name of being educated. All these, where other 
things are equal, will naturally prefer those institutions 
v/hich will furnish them the coveted certificate on the 
easiest terms. Nothing short of an effort in which all of 
the leading colleges of the country should act simulta 



342 



DR. BARNARD ON 



neo'jsly and in concert, could probably avail to change 
materially the system which at present exists. Whether 
it is owing to the faults of this system, or to some deeper 
lying cause, it is a fact which cannot be controverted, that 
our colleges are gradually losing ground in the public esti- 
mation. Though the creation of new ones is an every- 
day occurrence, the ratio to the entire population of the 
aggregate annual number of their graduates is steadily, 
though slowly, diminishing. In England, also, a similar 
change seems to be simultaneously going on. Conclusive 
proof of this is presented by Mr. Atkinson, in his able 
address before the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ; 
and among his citations is the remarkable testimony of 
Lord Lyndhurst, who expressed in Parliament, in 1855, 
the opinion that the universities had evidently a far weaker 
hold upon the public feeling of the country than they had 
possessed at no very distant previous period. " When I 
first entered public life," said he, *' I found in the other 
House of Parliament that a majority of the members of 
that assembly had been educated at one or the other of the 
universities. Now, however, as I understand, not more 
than one-sixth, or, at most, one-fifth of the representatives 
of the people have been educated at either of those great 
institutions." 

I cannot but regard these results as owing, in some de- 
gree, to the faults of the preparatory system in both coun- 
tries ; faults which the subsequent teaching in the colleges 
does not and cannot correct, and which entail educational 
deficiencies — deficiencies of practical knowledge on sub- 
jects held in the highest esteem by the public — upon all 
their graduates. 

. If we take up the reports of the regents of the univer- 
sity of this State, we shall see that in every academy un- 



EARLY MENTAL TRAINING. 



3+3 



der their control, without exception I believe, instruction 
is given on all those subjects v^^hich I have named as 
proper to be placed upon the list of preparatory studies. 
These subjects are not taught to those who are in process 
of preparation for college in those schools. They are un- 
doubtedly taught to others no more advanced in age than 
they. When the public see these things, how is it possi- 
ble that they should fail occasionally to draw unfavorable 
comparisons ? How is it possible that they should not 
sometimes imagine that perhaps the education which a 
youth may acquire in the academy niay better fit him for 
success in life, than all that can be done for him by a sys- 
tem which carries him professedly a great deal higher, yet 
lays its first foundation in a manner of which common 
sense fails to discover the wisdom ? 

Permit me, finally, to remark that I have not submitted 
these observations with any expectation that they will af- 
fect the action of this Convocation. If the views which 
I have expressed have any foundation in reason, I am 
aware that they too widely differ from those which arc 
generally entertained, to justify me in anticipating that 
they will be immediately approved. If they serve to 
awaken attention to the subject, and lead to its more de- 
liberate examination, all the end which I have proposed to 
myself in presenting them will have been answered. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS IN 
PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE ROYAL ACADEMV OF 
SCIENCES, IN MUNICH, isth JULY, 1866. 

BY 

JUSTUS VON LIEBIG. 



ON THE 



DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS 



The history of physical science teaches us that our 
knowledge of things and of natural phenomena has, for 
its starting-point, the material and intellectual wants of 
man, and is conditioned by both. Nature has denied to 
man the means of withstanding injuries from without, 
which constantly imperil his existence ; and it is, first of 
all, the pressure of the external world upon him, which 
arouses his dormant intellectual energies to resist it. All 
that he needs for shelter against the weather and against 
his enemies, for subsistence, and for the restoring of his 
health, he wins from nature; whence results an acquaint- 
ance with innumerable objects and their properties, and 
with the events which make them suitable for his ends. 

In a former discourse I had occasion to speak of the 
peculiar power of the imagination, of bringing the images 
awakened in it by sensual impressions into mutual relation, 
and thence of framing conclusions standing in a depend- 
ence on each other, similar to that of the conceptions 
which lead the intellect in its combinations ; with this dif- 
ference, however, that the conclusions of the imaginative 
faculty are themselves images. What, for the intellect, a 
word is, as mark of a conception, that for the phantasy is 



o^8 PROFESSOR LIEBIG ON THE 

an impression of sense. The word " tar " might produce 
no effect at all on the imagination of most men, whereas 
the smell of tar might perchance awaken, in the fancy of 
an individual, the image of a ship or harbor which he had 
visited years before. 

The husbandman, herdsman, hunter, live in immediate 
intercourse with nature : the first learns, through mere 
sensual perception, how sunshine and rain affect the growth 
of his vegetables, how the seed germinates and is devel- 
oped into a plant, how the plant blossoms and bears fruit ; 
so, too, the herdsman gathers a mass of experiences con- 
cerning the nutrition and propagation of the animals he 
guards, he becomes acquainted with their diseases, thence 
with nutritive and poisonous plants ; he forms for himself 
a clock in the starry sky, and learns the course of the 
heavenly bodies, and how they change with the seasons. 
The priest, who dissects the victim, comes to know its in- 
ternal parts and their connection. A multitude of such 
facts enables the observers of them to draw inferences as 
to the existence of others. The shepherd seeks medicinal 
herbs for his animals, and afterward applies them to men. 
From the changes caused by disease in the organs of 
beasts, the sacrificing priest forms judgments as to the na- 
ture of human maladies. Thus the shepherd becomes the 
earliest therapeutist, the priest the first pathologist. The 
methods of preparing leather, soap, glass, wine, oil, bread, 
cheese, were devised through conclusions of a like kind ; 
they were primitive ; even so the converting of wool and 
vegetable fibres into textures, the process of dyeing, that 
of extracting many metals, as copper, tin, iron, silver, and 
gold, from their ores. 

Man's superiority to tne beast depends essentially on his 
faculty of devising inventions for the gratification of his 



DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 



349 



wants, and it is the sum of them amongst a people which 
embraces the conception of their " civilization." Through 
inventions in the industrial arts, in medicine, mechanics, 
astronomy, facts are acquired indispensable to the subse- 
quent development of science : they lead to an acquaint- 
ance vi^ith the phenomena of motion in. the heavens and 
on the earth's surface, with the component parts of ter- 
restrial bodies,«nimals, and plants ; to the discovery of the 
effects of fire and of natural forces : but the experimental 
procedure, which conducts to inventions, seeks no explica- 
tions of the nature and essence of things and ph'enomena, 
for this lies wholly beside its aim. 

The scientific knowledge of nature has a different prob- 
lem ; it springs out of man's intellectual wants, out of an 
impulse of his soul to interpret the world wherein he lives, 
and the objects and appearances which daily engross his 
senses. But, in the beginning of his inquiry, he knows 
nothing of the nature of his senses, nor that the ground 
of things is inaccessible to them ; those senses, which are 
*^o help him understand the outward world, are, for him, 
instruments with the handling of which he is unacquainted j 
he sees and hears, yet knows nothing of light or sound, 
knows not whether he sees in his eyes or out of them, nor 
that the temperature he feels is his own. 

History informs us that mankind's representations of out- 
ward objects have been developed in like manner as with the 
child, which learns to cognize the indications of its senses 
only by degrees. Through repeated examination of objects 
with hand, eye, tongue, the child comes to ascertain their 
figure, color, and quality, and to distinguish the tangible, 
resisting solid from the fluid, cold from warm, dry from 
moist ; and his further development depends essentially on 
his power of reproducing to himself his perceptions, with- 



350 



PROFESSOR LIEBIG ON THE 



(jut further aid from sense. Gradually the remembered 
images accumuhitc, and the intellect begins, unconsciously, 
to ask questions of the senses; it compares," and discovers 
resemblances and differences ; learns that the cold object 
sometimes becomes warm ; the fluid, solid ; the solid, fluid. 
It is long, however, before man marks the peculiar and 
essential in each thing ; his conception of motion is con- 
nected with that of a hand, which lifts, draws, or pushes a 
body. 

With notions of this sort the investigation of nature 
began, and its subsequent development proceeded as in an 
individual, only that the senses and intellect of many were 
concerned in it ; each, in his contact with objects and his 
contemplation of events, assumes a standing-point of his 
own, each sees a different face and profile in the thing or 
the phenomenon, which is thus gradually studied on all its 
sides j subsequently, when the individualities become bet- 
ter defined, it is found that many phenomena are composed 
of parts, and that things co-operate which elude ordinary 
perception ; the earlier confidence in the indications of 
sense is lost, and tests for their examination are sought. 

Thus are gradually formed determinate conceptions of 
things and events, conceptions serviceable in intellectual 
operations ; with the increase of them, the number of their 
combinations is of course augmented, as also the command 
of the intellect over the senses ; instead of questions 
merely spontaneous, it now frames them with definite pur- 
pose, and instead of single questions, a multitude. The 
jicMceptions thus become conscious observations. 

Nobody will aflirm that in the senses of men there lay 
.in obstacle, in earlier times, to perceiving things as we 
now perceive them. Nor again, is the difference between 
our perceptions and cnrlior ones, as to many phenomena. 



DEViiLOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. ^51 

due to the want of facts in those times. True, we icnow 
more facts than formerly ; nevertheless, those relative to 
the most frequently recurring phenomena, e. g., to air and 
fire, evaporation and freezing, rain and vapor, heat and 
cold, were as well known a thousand years ago as now ; 
and nobody will believe that before the discovery of oxy- 
gen, people had any doubt about the necessity of air in 
combustion and respiration, or that of a strong draught to 
the production of greater heat. 

Our superior intelligence rests not on our senses, nor on 
our larger intellectual faculties ; for, as to the latter, the 
great philosophers of antiquity, who occupied themselves 
in seeking explications of the nature of things and of phe- 
nomena, stand to this day unsurpassed. The real ground 
is, that we are become richer in conceptions. But man is 
not born with notions of things ; that is, he is not born ac- 
quainted with sensible objects, their properties, and effects ; 
those notions must be gained by experience, and become 
developed in his mind ; far otherwise than with tlie animal, 
v/hosc faculties expand to their attainable perfection, with- 
out his own effort, by means of natural laws acting in 
him. 

All these conceptions have sprung or been derived from 
sensible marks, and as natural phenomena are always com- 
posite, and their conditions or parts are likewise things 
having determinable and invariable marks, it is clear that 
the conception of an object or phenomenon must involve 
all these marks. Wc speak of carbon as an element of 
plants or of the animal body, without, however, thinking 
under that name, of diamond, charcoal, sea-coal or lamp- 
black ; similarly, of phosphorus and iodine, which do not 
occur at all in nature as such. These are simply abstract 
conceptions, which, once fixed, excite, in all cases where 



352 



PROFESSOR LIEBIG ON THE 



their marks are perceived, the idea of carbon, phosphorus, 
iodine. 

Since, now, natural phenomena are interconnected hke 
the knots of a net, the investigation of particular phe- 
nomena evinces that they have certain conditions (which, 
as remarked, are active things) in common ; and, as the 
whole number of the conditions or parts ofcall natural 
phenomena is limited and proportionally small, all these 
phenomena must come at last to be resolved into concep- 
tions. This is the problem of science. Scientific prog- 
ress depends on the accumulation of facts, though this 
progress stands not in relation to their number, but to the 
sum of the materials of thought derived from them. A 
thousand facts change not of themselves the standing-point 
of science, and a single one, which has become compre- 
hensible, outweighs, in time, the value of all the others. 
These remarks concerning the development of our empir- 
ical conception, are perhaps fitted to lead to a juster esti- 
mate, than hitherto, of the different periods in the knowl- 
edge of natural phenomena. 

As the explication of a natural phenomenon is a logical 
piocess, the intellect is able to fix beforehand the princi- 
ples, that is, the logical conditions, conjointly requisite to 
such explication. This was done by Aristotle. "The 
procedure of philosophy," he remarks, " is that of all the 
other sciences ; we must first collect facts, and get a 
knowledge of the things which are the subject of them : 
not the mass of facts at once, but each for itself is to be 
first examined, and conclusions thence drawn. Having 
the facts, it is our subsequent business to establish their 
connection. The facts themselves are obtained through 
sensual perceptions ; when these are imperfect, so will be 
the knowledge reared upon them Wc can have no gen' 



DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 



353 



eral theoretical propositions, except by means of induction, 
and inductions can be framed only through sensual percep- 
tions, for these are concerned with the particular." 

Such are the principles of investigation bequeathed us 
by the greatest of the ancient thinkers. They are as valid 
now as they were two thousand years ago. 

Comparing Aristotle's explanations of natural phenom- 
ena, as well as those of the whole following series of in- 
vestigators, down to our day, we find at all times the 
opinion prevalent that the conceptions were in harmony 
with the facts, and indeed the explications always corre- 
sponded to the laws of logic, but the later ones are con- 
stantly in contradiction with the earlier ; what was deemed 
true is afterward found to be false, and thus the following 
explanations always annul the preceding, which procedure 
goes on for centuries. Manifestly, therefore, the truth of 
explications does not depend on the principles of logic 
alone. If, however, we consider the empirical concep- 
tions of Aristotle and of subsequent investigators, we at 
once perceive the ground wherefore the most highly de- 
veloped intellect and the subtlest logic are not sufficient, 
of themselves, to the framing of a just explication, for this 
depends on the contents of the empirical conceptions. 

At the outset the facts embraced in a conception are in- 
determinate, being not fixed either in their number or ex- 
tension, whence the first explications can, manifestly, be 
neither definite nor limited, and they must change just in 
proportion as the facts are more distinctly ascertained, and 
as the unknown ones belonging to the conception are dis- 
covered and are incorporated in it. The earlier explana- 
tions are therefore only relatively false, and the later only 
therein truer that the contents of the conceptions of things 
are more comprehensive, determinate, and distinct. This 
takes place in a certain succession. 



354 



PROFESSOR LIEBIG ON THE 



No later developed conception can precede in time an 
earlier, and if this happens the conception is without effect, 
because deficient in comprehension. On the earlier con- 
ception is grounded the development of all the following 
ones. The explications of natural phenomena by the 
Greek philosophers, and by subsequent investigators, man- 
ifest the extent and comprehension of their empirical ideas, 
and nothing further ; in which respect those explications 
are of special interest for the history of the evolution of 
ideas in natural science, containing, as they do, the begin- 
nings and bases of our own conceptions. 

Aristotle distinguishes the solid from the fluid and aeri- 
form. All solid things are with him varieties of some- 
thing solid ; we can understand that transparent bodies 
have something in common with water ; but language is 
inadequate to the limiting of the other differences of solid 
bodies in figure, color, hardness ; that alone is determina- 
ble which can be formed from those bodies, or which pro- 
ceeds from them. A white stone, in the fire, yields lime ; 
another white stone melts into glass ; a red stone gives 
iron ; another red stone gives quicksilver ; a gray stone, 
tin ; a black, lead. " The essential of things," remarks 
Aristotle, " lies in the form." Here is the first conception 
of chemical analysis. 

" Daily experience shows that solids cannot float in air 
or in space, unless sustained by something, and as we see 
the stars behind the moon, and the moon is nearer the 
earth than the sun is, these bodies must, as solids, be fixed 
on transparent rings or spherical shells, which revolve 
about the earth, bearing those bodies with them. 

" A stone, falling freely, descends to the earth with 
accelerated velocity ; the senses and understanding arc 
wholly incapable of perceiving that the earth has any con- 



DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 



355 



nection with the fall ; evidently there must exist an im- 
pulse in the stone itself to seek that place which Nature 
has assigned to it." Here is the beginning of the conception 
of gravity^ or of an attractive force. 

These notions of the Greeks were entirely in accord- 
ance with their experience, and so far right, as no others 
were then possible. The conception of time, which be- 
longs to the composite notion of velocity, was first devel- 
oped fifteen hundred years after Aristotle, and became 
incorporated in it. Clocks, or time-measurers for short 
intervals, the Greeks had not. 

In the beginning of physical investigation, the complex 
phenomena of rain, rainbov/s, combustion, and respiration, 
are of course looked upon as simple, for nothing is then 
known of their parts ; later it is found that cloud must 
precede rain, that without the sun there is no rainbow, and 
v/ithout air no combustion or respiration. The subse- 
quently observed part of the phenomenon is constantly re- 
garded as its cause, the sun as cause of the rainbow, the 
air as cause of respiration and combustioi], entirely in the 
sense that we consider the moon's revolution as causing 
the ebb and flow. 

So the detecting and establishing by Thales of the man- 
ifold relations of water, of those of air by Anaximenes, of 
those of fire by Heraclltus, belong to the greatest discov- 
eries, for these philosophers thus cleared the way for all 
the questions relating to the most important phenomena 
on the earth's surface, to the life of animals and men — 
questions which engrossed attention up to the most recent 
period. 

From the acute verbal analyses of the Greek thinkers, 
we learn with great definiteness the surn of the concep- 
tions, v/hich the words, that occupied them in their intel- 



356 PROFESSOR LIEBIG ON THE 

lectual operations, involve, and it would suffice to comj)are 
the comprehension of one of these words, e. g,^ " air," in 
its several periods, with our own, in order to obtain a clear 
view of the character of the empirical conceptions in those 
periods, and of their mode of development. 

The Greeks knew that air in a bladder resists pressure, 
and that the water in which an empty glass is inverted 
will not fill the glass ; air was regarded as a resisting, space- 
filling thing, as an element, and, next to fire (/. ^., smoke 
which ascends in the atmosphere), as the lightest element. 
Down to the beginning of the sixteenth century, it was 
supposed to be transformable into water, in the middle of 
that century, as not transformable into water — it was found 
to contain water in the form of air; in 1630 it was ascer- 
tained to be heavy, /. ^., ponderable ; 1643, to be some- 
thing which presses with its whole weight upon all bodies 
on the earth's surface; 1647, it was discovered that its 
invisible molecules' press upon each other and are clastic, 
whence the lower atmospheric strata are denser than the 
higher; 1660, that kinds of air, elastic like common air, 
can be produced artificially in chemical processes; 1727, 
that there are such kinds of air in plants, animal matters, 
stones, and metallic calxes ; not products, but educts, 
many combustible, others extinguishing fire ; J 774, amongst 
them a kind wherein combustible bodies burn more freely 
than in common air; 1775, that the mass of the atmos- 
phere consists of two sorts of air, one of which supports 
combustion, the other not, moreover of a variable amount 
of watery vapor ; at the close of the eighteenth century, 
that it contains also carbonic acid ; in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, ammonia and nitric acid, and, lastly, that fungous 
spores of all sorts float in it. 

Our standing-point relatively to the conception of air 



DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 057 

has been gained in consequence of the efforts of hundreds 
of the acutest of minds, during a space of more than two 
thousand years, through a continual extending, purging, and 
limiting of the original conception, and therein lies the 
difference between former notions of things and events, 
and those of our own day. I shall afterward have occa- 
sion to show that, to the discovery of the facts which 
were connected with the conception of air, and which 
gradually gave to its comprehension more largeness and 
definitencss, the "idea" of the facts was anterior,/.^., 
that they were first "thought" and then discovered. 

It is readily perceived that most of our conceptions in 
philosophy, and especially in jurisprudence, have been ob- 
tained and evolved in a way wholly similar, so that, for in- 
stance, the notions now embraced in the word " state " or 
" church " differ from those of a century ago. The con- 
ception of " God " undergoes change and development 
with that of "force." 

Each of our present notions is the fruit of time, and of 
infinite toil and intellectual effort, and if our speculations 
are less bold than those of the Greeks, it is because v/e 
have learned, from their example, that the highest soaring 
of imagination and the subtlest logic charige not our stand- 
ing-point, and are without effect on the regular course of 
the evolution of our empirical conceptions. Euclid, with 
all his great mathematical talent, believed that vision takes 
place by means of rays issuing from the eyes ; and Des- 
cartes, one of the most powerful of all thinkers, could not 
rise, in his day, to the notion of an attractive force. 

The opinion prevails widely that there v/as a gap in tlie 
investigation of nature between the days of the Greeks 
and our modern times down to the fifteenth century. Ac- 
cordingly, the middle ages are characterized by historians 



358 PROFESSOR L1£BIG ON THE 

as a period of pause and stagnation, and the lll'tcenth cen- 
tury as that of tlic renascence of the sciences. As regards 
Europe this opinion is not absolutely true, and docs not 
hold of Western Europe (Germany, England, and the 
present France), in which Grecian and Roman culture 
could not have become extinct in the middle ages, seeing 
it was not introduced there until much later. It should be 
remembered that, in the times of the academies of Athens, 
Western Europe was inhabited by half-savage populations, 
who clothed themselves in skins ; that under Charlemagne 
most of the dignitaries and greatest barons of the empire 
could not write their own names ; that in the thirteenth 
century Rome was still the focus of the traffic in Christian 
slaves, and that there were great slave-markets in Lyons, 
and in the cities lying on the cast and north seas. 

Charlemagne's endeavors, by the establishment of 
schools, to elevate the intelligence of the rude and igno- 
rant priesthood of the age, could liavc no result ; the soil 
on which culture thrives being not yet prepared. The de- 
velopment of culture, ;'. r., the extending of man's spiritual 
domain, depends on the growth of the inventions which 
condition the progress of civilization ; for, through these, 
new facts are obtained, indispensable to the increase of 
empirical conceptions or material of thought. 

The development of science, the mother of which is 
culture, requires still other conditions ; it depends on the 
formation of a class who shall devote their- powers to the 
cultivation of the intellectual domain, exclusive of every 
other end. As the men who consecrate themselves to tliis 
labor produce no marketable commodities which they can 
exchange for the necessaries of life, such a class cannot 
arise until a certain surplus amount of riches has been ac- 
cumulated, not needed by its possessors for the satisfaction 



DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS, o^g 

of their material wants. Such accumulation once real 
ized, men's spiritual wants presently assert their claims, 
and the wealthy class becomes ready to exchange a por- 
tion of its riches for the means of mental culture. 

Although, during the middle ages, there was uninter- 
rupted intercourse between the Eastern empire and Italy, 
and no obstacle existed to the diffusion of Byzantine learn- 
ing, this learning did not, however, pass into the West until 
the fourteenth century, because here an intellectual class 
being not yet formed, the conditions necessary to the en- 
couragement and advancement of it were wanting. Man- 
ifestly, Grecian culture could spread in Western Europe 
only in proportion as the civilization of the peoples became 
approximate to that of Greek antiquity. It is easily shown 
that the civilization of the European populations constantly 
advanced from the decline of the old Greek states, but, 
through peculiar relations presently to be noticed, it re- 
mained for some time without influence on the progress 
of culture, /. £•., of its intellectual department, whence a 
seeming break. 

As to the influence of inventions upon the development 
of conceptions and ideas in physical science, it is enough 
to mention that, e. g., the true view of the motion of the 
earth and other planets became established through the 
invention of the telescope ; as, also, all the advances of 
astronomy were dependent on the improvement of optical 
instruments. The invention of colorless glass preceded 
that of the telescope. The further improvement of opti- 
cal instruments rested upon the fabrication of flint-glass, 
and on that of achromatic lenses, which Newton deemed 
impossible. With Galileo's telescope, Uranus and Sat- 
urn's satellites could not have been discovered. Coperni- 
cus regarded his own view, not as "true," but as "simpler" 



360 



PROFESSOR LIEBIG ON THE 



and " fairer," just as wc consider the notions of the psy- 
cl]ologist not true in the same sense as 2 x 2 = 4. is so, 
but as " appropriate," " profound," or " exhaustive." 

Chemical analysis issued from the art of assaying ; min- 
eral chemistry from the technico-chemical trades ; organic 
chemistry from medicine. The theory of heat has re- 
ceived extension through the steam-engine, that of light 
through photography. 

In astronomy, the Greeks did the utmost that the com- 
mand of a single unaided sense permitted ; they discovered 
the law of the reflection of light, the arithmetical relations 
of tones, the centre of gravity, the law of the lever and 
that of hydrostatic pressure, and also whatever, by the aid 
of mathematics, could be deduced from these laws and 
from astronomical observations ; but all further progress 
was restricted through the degree of their civilization. 
The source of the trade, wealth, and power of the Grecian 
states in their prime, was a very highly developed and 
varied industry : Corinth furnished what might be styled 
the Birmingham and ShcfKeld wares ; Athens was the 
centre of such manufactures as are now distributed be- 
tween Leeds, Staffordshire, and London (woollen cloths, 
dyeing, earthenwares, gold and silver utensils, ship-build- 
ing). The citizens were in largest measure manufacturers, 
ship-owners, merchants, having their counting-houses and 
factories on all the coasts of the Black Sea and Mediterra- 
nean ; the men of science were burghers' sons, and in- 
itiated in industrial pursuits. Socrates was a stone-cutter, 
Aristotle an apothecary (preparer of medicines and physi- 
cian), Plato and Solon not unfamiliar with trade. 

The learned, in ancient Greece, spoke and wrote the 
same language as the industrial class ; in their education, 
the last stood on the same level with the philosophers ; 



DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. o6i 

they differed only in the direction of their knowledges. 
Democratic institutions united both in a close personal in- 
tercourse. Indeed, the thirty-eight chapters of the " Prob- 
lems " seem to be nothing else but questions by masters 
of trades, artificers, musicians, architects, engineers, which 
Aristotle sought to answer, so far as his empirical concep- 
tions enabled him. 

No other country of the ancient world united (down to 
the time of Pericles), in its social state, in the intimate 
conjunction of the productive with the intellectual class, 
the conditions necessary to the origination of science, so 
well as Greece did. But Greece was a slave country, and 
in slavery lay the ban which enclosed her civilization in 
narrow limits and rendered them impassable. All the 
products of Greek manufactories were the work of slaves. 
Athens, in her prime, contained nearly two thousand slaves 
to every hundred citizens, a number which indicates the 
extraordinary development of her industry. 

It is plain that a workman, e. g.^ an artisan, is not, of 
himself alone, in a condition to produce more exchange- 
able commodities than will suffice to purchase for him and 
his family the merest necessaries ; he must be able to com- 
mand the labor of twenty men and upward, before he can 
manufacture a surplus adequate to satisfy the wants of a 
portion of his countrymen ; and the entire industrial classes 
of a country must produce a very much greater surplus, 
before their commodities can become objects of foreign 
commerce. This last condition is realized in all industrio- 
commercial states, and was realized in Greece ; for the 
wealth existing there in the precious metals was not ob- 
tained by pillage, but by exchanging the products of Gre- 
cian industry, in other countries, where they were more 
wanted than gold and silver. 
17 



362 PROFESSOR LIEBIG ON THE 

The progress of Greek civilization was dependent es- 
sentially on the change of slave-labor into free, a transfer 
mation not supposable without the employment of natur il 
forces, applied to labor-saving machines. 

It is evident that, with the invention of a machine 
which shall convert a given natural force {e. g.^ a falling 
weight of water) into an industrial force, performing the 
labor of twenty men, the inventor could grow rich and 
twenty slaves be set free ; moreover, that the natural effect 
of the introduction of machines is an augmentation of the 
productive class, whence a greater number of inventors 
and increased production. But, in a slave-state, the appli- 
cation of natural forces and the substitution of machine- 
labor for servile, is mainly impossible, for as, in such a 
state, the profits of the capitalist rest upon his slaves, he 
sees that the introduction of machines must imperil his 
resources, and when, as in Greece, the capitalists belong to 
the ruling class, the government and people will combine 
to perpetuate the existing system, /". ^., slavery ; — the gov- 
ernment with the seemingly-wise purpose of assuring sub- 
sistence to the laborers. 

Only the freeman, not the slave, has a disposition and 
interest to improve implements or to invent them ; accord- 
ingly, in the devising of a complicated machine, the work- 
men employed upon it are generally co-inventors. The 
eccentric and the governor, most important parts of the 
steam-engine, were devised by laborers. The improve- 
ment of established industrial methods by slaves, them- 
selves industrial machines, is out of the question. 

Freedom^ that is, the absence of all restrictions which can 
prevent men from using to their advantage the powers which 
God has given them, is the weightiest of all the conditions 
of progress in civilization and culture. 



DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 063 

A glance at China enables us to understand the effect 
produced upon a gifted people, simply by excluding the 
application of natural forces to labor-saving machines. Its 
high civilization has been thus rendered stationary for the 
past two thousand years. 

In England, how^ever, and especially in the United 
States of North America, v^^here free action is not re- 
stricted by antiquated regulations and laws, the product of 
ignorance, we see a perpetual growth of wealth, power, and 
civilization, and It can hardly be doubted that amongst the 
peoples of the North American Free States, all the condi- 
tions exist for their development to the highest point of 
culture and civilization attainable by men. 

A modern state, wherein there Is no liberty of industry, 
where the management and extension of a business depends 
on the will of Ignorant officials, where the freeman Is hin- 
dered from choosing the place which he finds most suit- 
able for the employment of his powers, and cannot marry 
without permission of his superiors, this Is the old slave- 
condition. In which the pith and marrow of the people is poor 
and without susceptibility for Intellectual and moral cul- 
ture, and of which the wealth and power are an allusive 
varnish that a little friction rubs away. 

The effect of riches on the spirit of the productive 
classes is visible In the commercial states whose trade 
rests on industry. The sons of the opulent manufactur- 
ers and merchants abandon their fathers' business, which 
was the source of their wealth ; being rich to superfluity, 
they transfer their ambition to the pursuit of rank and 
reputation, devoting themselves to science, to politics, to 
the army, or church, and in this wise the intellectual clas? 
grows out of the productive. 

In modern Europe a manufacturer Is not transmitted to 



o54 PROFESSOR LIEBIG ON THE 

the third generation ; so, too, most commercial houses pass 
to other hands in the second. Hence, in a free country, 
the renewal of the producing class with each generation, 
and the constant resuscitation of industry. The industri- 
als, grown rich, give place to energetic, inventive poor 
men, and thus a circulation is established in the state, 
through which its power and wealth increase continually. 

In Greece, the course of things was quite different. 
There, as everywhere, riches generated the intellectual 
order, whose maintenance, of course, depended on the pro- 
ductive class ; but this last was not renewed and rejuve 
nated ; the poor freeman was obliged to emigrate ; he 
could, perhaps, fabricate a machine, but not slaves, and, 
without slaves, the acquisition of wealth, through industry, 
was impossible. Commerce alone remained open to a 
minority. 

With the ceasing of that circulation in the state, which 
maintains industry and the power of production, and is the 
condition of their progress, Greece had reached the bounds 
of her civilization. There were no more inventions by the 
people grown rich, and, in the absence of new facts won 
Trom nature, the source of the empirical conceptions indis- 
pensable to the extension of the intellectual domain, /. ^., 
of culture, became exhausted. The trade in Grecian prod- 
ucts necessarily passed, by degrees, into a trade in foreign 
commodities ; the accumulated capital, therefore, could 
not long remain undiminished, though, indeed, the vital 
nerve of the slave-state was withered centuries before 
there were any outward marks of decline. 

Greek civilization travelled through the Roman empire 
and the Arabians into every European country, and its 
continuous evolution is manifested throughout the middle 
ages in the increase of inventions. At the close of the 



DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 065 

fifteenth century we find already an advanced algebra and 
trigonometry, the decimal notation, an improved calendar, 
and a complete revolution prepared in medicine ; we re- 
mark extraordinary progress in mining and smelting, in 
dyeing, weaving, tanning, in glass-making, architecture, 
and especially in the department of chemistry. Paper, 
telescopes, guns, clocks, knitting with needles, table-forks, 
horse-shoes, bells, chimneys, wood-engraving, copperplate- 
engraving, wiredrawing, preparing of steel, table-glass, lead- 
foiling and tin-foiling of mirrors, windmills, stamping-mills, 
saw-mills, were all invented ; the corn-mill and the loom 
improved. 

These facts give a notion of the progress of civilization 
in Western Europe, and, on these and on the geographical 
discoveries, rest all the acquisitions in the intellectual do- 
main during the fifteenth century : we find a flourishing 
commerce, which, from Genoa, Pisa, Venice, and the 
coast-cities of the North and East Seas, embraced all 
EuropCj linking it with Arabia and India, and having as its 
basis a varied industry in the busy towns of the Nether- 
lands, Italy, Germany, and England ; we see in these 
towns a free, opulent burgher-class arise in advanced vigor, 
and naturally from this class, in consequence of the ac- 
cumulated wealth, the intellectual order develops itself. 
From that point began the continuation of Grecian and 
Roman culture. 

The members of the newly originated intellectual class 
were at first occupied in gaining possession of the treasures 
of ancient learning ; and so long as they were themselves 
still learners, that is, not so thoroughly imbued with the 
spirit of ancient culture as to be able to advance and ex- 
tend it, they could not efficiently discharge their proper 
office of being teachers of the public ; tl\ey even turned 



366 PROFESSOR LIEBIG ON THE 

away from the people and the popular dialect, not indeed 
without reason, for the vernacular literature exhibited 
scarce any thing worthy to attract and enchain minds dis- 
ciplined by the study of antique models. 

The position and employment of the learned of those 
times concurred in withdrawing them from contact with 
the productive classes. Accordingly, the literature of that 
age gives no indication of the degree of the popular civili- 
zation and culture : for the knowledge circulating; through 
the masses and absorbed into their thinking, a knowledge 
originating in their improved acquaintance with physical 
laws, and proportionate to the sum of their juster ideas of 
things and the relations of things, was not yet stored up in 
books, and was wholly foreign to the learned. 

The approximation of the Intellectual and productive 
orders was hardly prevented by the exclusiveness of the 
former ; In truth, the Industrial population, down to the 
fourteenth century, from the rudeness and poverty of the 
written language, lacked the necessary means of such ap- 
proximation. In place of the learned, the Melstersanger, 
in their singing-schools, had much influence in promoting 
the development and diffusion of language, oral and writ- 
ten, amongst the burgher-classes. These last had been 
previously restricted altogether to personal Intercourse 
through travel, for the interchange and increase of their 
experiences ; they were migratory ; but, with the com- 
mand of a written language, the facts and observations 
gatheied by them were collected and made diffusible ; 
reading and writing, arts unknown before, were recognized 
by the people as most Important helps for the advancement 
and Interchange of knowledge — first of all In the towns 
whose Industry was Incompatible with a migratory popula- 



DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 



367 



tion. In these towns the- earliest popular schools were 
founded. 

The impulse to diffuse the lore of antiquity, by means 
of schools, was as strong amongst the learned as was the 
wish for instruction in the productive class. Both circum- 
stances combined to stimulate the desire for books ; the 
difficulty of satisfying it through copyists gave occasion to 
the invention of printing, in the middle of the fifteenth 
century. A century earlier, the invention would have had 
no influence on intellectual progress. From the time of 
its actual occurrence, dates a new period in the history of 
culture. 

A survey of literature, at the end of a century after the 
printing of the first book with movable type, awakens our 
astonishment at the extent and importance of the achieve- 
ments in the physical sciences and medicine, and at the 
extraordinary mass of facts and experiences, which the 
middle ages had acquired and transmitted, in astronomy, 
technics, engineering, and in the trades, and which were 
now collected by the intelligent scholars of the learned 
schools, who stood nearest to the producing classes, namely 
the physicians. In the sixteenth century the physicians 
were the founders of the modern natural sciences, they 
participated in the diffusion and extension of Greek learn- 
ing, and intervened in the intellectual education of the 
people. 

Another century and a half elapsed, however, before the 
kjiowledge, accumulated by them, was arranged and ren- 
dered comprehensive and complete enough to be employed 
in university instruction. Hitherto the foreign language, 
in which that knowledge was communicated — a language 
universally current amongst the learned of Europe — had 
had the inestimable advantage of uniting all the European 



368 



PROFESSOR LIEBIG ON THE 



thinkers devoted to the sciences, in the solution of theii 
high problems. Without the common Latin language, 
this fruitful conjunction of labors had been impossible. It 
was not until near the end of the eighteenth century, that, 
with the exclusion of Latin in schools and literature, the 
last barrier between the intellectual and producing classes 
fell. Both again spoke, as in old Greece, the same lan- 
guage, and understood each other ; for science, school, and 
poetry acted conjointly in diffusing an equally high grade 
of intellectual discipline amongst all ranks. 

With the extinction of the slavery of the ancient world, 
and the union of all the conditions for the evolution of the 
human mind, a progress in civilization and culture is 
thenceforth assured, indestructible, imperishable. 

In the natural course of physical inquiry a change has 
taken place. Most of the facts from which the investiga- 
tor elaborated empirical ideas, he had long received from 
the metallurgists, the engineers, the apothecaries, briefly, 
from the industrials, and had resolved their inventions into 
conceptions, which the producing classes received back in 
the form of explications and applied to their own practical 
ends. The industrials thence abandoned their dislike of 
theory ; the craftsman, technist (Techniker), agriculturist, 
physician, as formerly in Greece, ask counsel of the learned 
theorist. 

A new change began when the learned physical investi- 
gator, the teacher of medicine, had acquired the technical 
dexterity of the practical classes, and when these had ap- 
propriated the laws and scientific principles established by 
the learned. In the pursuit of his ends, the scientific 
inquirer has thus become independent and an inventor ; 
the craftsman, agriculturist, etc., have gained independence 
of inquiry, intellectual freedom. The future discloses to 



DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 



369 



our view an animated picture of an endless activity, fertile 
in results. The past appears to us now in a different light. 

We see that the warfare against physical inquiry, waged 
by the scholasticism and theology of the middle ages, was 
of no import whatsoever. The ground of it was an in- 
ability, at the time, to distinguish a dogma from a fact. 
The spiritual and temporal powers united could not have 
prevented the invention of the telescope and mariner's 
compass and the discovery of oxygen, nor have repressed 
the effect of them on the minds of men. A book can be 
burned, but not a fact. 

With the proof that this earth is a small planet circulat- 
ing about the sun, the early representation of " Heaven " 
becam.e meaningless, as did the representation of " Hell " 
with the explanation of fire. Upon the discovery of at- 
mospheric pressure, the belief in witchcraft and magic had 
no further support, for, along with her *' horror vacui," 
Nature lost her " willing," her love and her hate. With 
these discoveries, mankind began to feel their strength and 
position in the universe. 

As to the scholasticism of the middle ages, had Aristotle 
and Plato risen from their graves, to become teachers in 
its schools, they could not have furthered intellectual 
progress, because of the lack of advanced empirical con- 
ceptions. The logic of those ages, and the intellectual 
gymnastics resting upon it, best corresponded to that time 
and the future. The hostility against the later physical 
inquiry was without effect. 

Physical science would not have advanced one step 
further than it has done, nor have developed itself earlier 
or otherwise, even had the entire spiritual and political 
power been in league with it. 

A computation, were it made, of the effect produced by 



370 DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 

Luther upon our day and our stand-point, with the great 
discoveries in nature then extant, and of the effect these 
would have produced ivithout Luther, would lead to a cor- 
rect result. 

We now know that ideas develop themselves organ 
ically according to determinate laws of nature and of the 
human mind, and we see the tree of knowledge which the 
Greeks planted expand uninterruptedly on the soil of civili- 
zation and with the due culture of it, and blossom and 
bear fruit, under the sunshine of freedom, at the proper 
time. We have learned that its branches can indeed be 
bent by external force, but not broken, and that its fine 
and innumerable roots lie hidden so deep, that their silent 
activity is wholly withdrawn from the will of men. 

The history of nations informs us of the fruitless efforts 
of political and theological powers to perpetuate slavery, 
corporeal and intellectual : future history will describe the 
victories of freedom which men achieved through investi- 
gation of the ground of things and of truth — victories won 
with bloodless weapons, and in a struggle wherein morals 
and religion participated only as feeble allies. 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE SCIENTIFIC 
STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE LONDON 
COLLEGE OF PRECEPTORS. 

BY 

EDWARD L. YOUMANS, M.D. 



"No system or rule of practice in education can safely be admitted which 
does not associate itself with this part of science (physiology)." 

Sir Henry Holland. 

" If it be possible to perfect mankind, the means of doing so will be found 
in the medical sciences." Descartes. 

" Of old it was the fashion to try to explain nature from a very incomplete 
knowledge of man ; but it is the certain tendency of advancing science to ex- 
plain man on the basis of a perfecting knowledge of nature." 

Dr Kenry Maudslky. 



ON THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF 
HUMAN NATURE. 



Perhaps the most eorrect conception of science that 
has yet been formed is that which regardsUt as the 
highest stage of growing knowledge. Ideas about men, 
h'ke those about other subjects, undergo develQpment. 
There is a rude acquaintance with human nature among 
barbarians : they observe that the young can be trained, 
and that men are influenced by motives and passions ; 
for without some such knowledge, their limited social 
relations would be impossible. These primitive notions 
have been gradually unfolded by time into the com- 
pleter and more accurate ideas which mark the civilized 
state. Yet the prevailing knowledge of human nature 
is still imperfect and empirical — that is, it has not ex- 
panded into rational principles and general laws. That it 
will become still more perfect accords with all analogy; 
and if this process continues, as it undoubtedly must, 
there seems reasonable hope of the formation of some- 
thing like a definite Science of Human Nature. 

That the scientific method of inquiry is inadequate 
and inapplicable to the higher study of man, is a widely 
prevalent notion, and one which seems, to a great extent, 
to be shared alike by the ignorant and the educated. 
Holding the crude idea that science pertains only tc 



374 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

the material world, they denounce all attempts to make 
human nature a subject of strict scientific inquiry, as an 
intrusion into an illegitimate sphere. Maintaining that 
man's position is supreme and exceptional, they insist 
that he is only to be comprehended, if at all, in some 
partial, peculiar, and transcendental way. In entire con- 
sistence with this hypothesis, is the prevailing practice ; 
for those who by their function as teachers, preachers, 
and lawgivers, profess to have that knowledge of man 
which best qualifies for directing him in all relations, are, 
as a class, confessedly ignorant of science. There, are, 
some, however, and happily their number is increasing, 
who hold that this idea is profoundly erroneous, that 
the very term "human nature," indicates man's place in 
that universal order which it is the proper office of 
science to explore ; and they accordingly maintain that 
it is only as " the servant and interpreter of nature " that 
he c?in rise to anything like a true understanding of 
himself. 

The past progress of knowledge, as is well known* 
has not been a steady and continuous growth : it has 
advanced by epochs. An interval of apparent rest, 
perhaps long protracted, is brought to a close by the 
introduction of some new conception, which revolu- 
tionizes a department of thought, and opens new fields 
of investigation, that lead to uncalculated consequences. 
Those who have watched the later tendencies of scien- 
tific thought can hardly fail to perceive, that we of 
the present age are entering upon one of those great 
epochs in our knowledge of man. Standing at the head 
of the vast system of being of which he forms a part, it 
is inevitable that the views entertained concerning him 
at any age will be but a rcficx of the knowledge of 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 375 

nature which that age has reached. So long as little 
was known of the order of the universe, little could be 
understood of him in whom that order culminates. 
Those triumphs of science which are embodied in ex- 
ternal civilization are Avell fitted to kindle our admira- 
tion ; but they are of secondary moment when compared 
with the consequences which must flow from the full 
application of the scientific method to the study of man 
himself 

The method of regarding man which tradition has 
transmitted to us from the earliest ages, is, at the out- 
set, to cleave him asunder, and substitute the idea of 
two beings for the reality of one. Having thus intro- 
duced the notion of his double nature — mind and body 
as separate, independent existences — there grew up a 
series of moral contrasts between the disjointed pro- 
ducts. The mind was ranked as the higher, or spiritual 
nature, the body as the lower, or material nature. The 
mind was said to be pure, aspiring, immaterial ; the 
body gross, corrupt, and perishable ; and thus the feel- 
ings became enlisted to widen the breach and perpetuate 
the antagonism. Having divided him into two alien 
entities, and sought all terms of applause to celebrate 
the one, while exhausting the vocabulary of reproach 
upon the other, the fragments were given over to two 
parties — the body to the doctors of medicine, and the 
spirit to the doctors of philosophy, who seem to have 
agreed in but one thing, that the partition shall be 
eternal, and that neither shall ever- intrude into the 
domain of the other. 

As a necessary consequence of this rupture, the living 
reality, as a subject of study, disappeared from view, 
and the dignified fraction was substituted in its place. 



376 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

Not man, but mind, became the object of inquiry. With 
the disappearance of the actual being, went also the 
conception of individuality, and there remained only 
mind as an abstraction, to be considered as literally out 
of all true relations as if the material universe had never 
existed. The method thus begun has been closely 
pursued, and for thousands of years the chief occupa- 
tion of philosophic thought has been to speculate upon 
the nature and operations of mind as manifested in con- 
sciousness. Admitting the legitimacy of the inquiry, and 
that it has to a certain extent yielded, valid results, it is 
clear that the effect of the divorce was fatally to narrow 
the course of investigation and to prevent all free and 
thorough research into the reality of the case ; thus 
justifying the charge of emptiness and fruitlessncss 
which is now so extensively made against metaphysical 
studies. From Plato to Sir William Hamilton, who in- 
scribed upon the walls of his lecture-room, " On earth 
there is nothing great but man ; in man there is nothing 
great but miftd,* a method has been pursued so con- 
fessedly vacant of valuable results, that its partizans 
have actually denied the attainment of truth to be their 
object: declaring that the supreme aim of philosophy 
is nothing more than to serve as a means of intellectual 
gymnastics.* 

In pointed contrast with this view is the method of 
modern science. In a spirit of reverence for the order 
and harmony of nature where all factitious distinctions of 
great and small disappear; striving to dispossess herself 
v{ prejudice, and to aim only at the attainment of truth ; 
rejecting all assumptions which can show no better war- 
rant than that they were made in the infancy of the 

* Sec llic opening lectures of irnmiUoii's Mctapliysics. 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 377 

race, she begins with the simple examination of facts, 
and rises patiently and cautiously to the knowledge of 
principles. The study of man is entered upon in the 
same temper, and by the same methods, that have con- 
ducted to truth in other departments of investigation. 
Finding the notion of his duality, as interpre|:ed ia the 
past, with its resulting double scries of independent in- 
quiries, to be erroneous, science proceeds at the .outset 
to reunite the dissevered fragments of humanity, and to 
reconstitute the individual in thought as he is in life, a 
concrete unit — the living, thinking, acting being which 
we encounter in daily experience. It is now established 
that the dependence of thought upon organic conditions 
is so intimate and absolute, that they can no longer be 
considered except as unity. Man, as a problem of study, 
is simply an organism of varied powers and activities ; 
and the true office of scientific inquiry is to determine 
the mechanism, modes, and laws of its action. 

My purpose, on the present occasion, is to show that 
the doctrine which has prevailed in the past, and still 
prevails, is doomed to complete inversion ; that the 
bodily organism which was so long neglected as of no 
account, is in reality the first and fundamental thing to 
be considered ; and that, in reaching a knowledge of 
mind and character through the study of the corporeal 
system, there has been laid the firm foundation of that 
Science of Human Nature, the completion of which v.ill 
constitute the next and highest phase in the progress of 
man. Of course, so vast a subject can receive but scanty 
justice in the limits of a lecture: the utmost that I can 
hope to do will be to present some decisive illustra- 
tions of the dependence of mental action upon the bodily 
system, and to point out certain important results Avhich 



37^ OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

have been already arrived at by this method of inquiry. 
A hasty glance, in the first place, at the several steps by 
\Yhich it has been reached, will help to an understanding 
of the present state of knowledge upon the subject. 

The establishment of the modern doctrine, that the 
brain is the organ of the mind, naturally led to a train 
of researches into the conditions of the connexion. The 
instrument of thought, being a part of the living system, 
is, of course, subject to its laws, and our understanding of 
its action becomes dependent upon the progress of phy- 
siological knowledge. Physiology, again, depending upon 
the various physical sciences, the higher investigation 
could proceed only with the general advance of inquiry. 
The discovery of the circulation of the blood laid the 
foundation for the modern science of physiology ; but 
that discovery did not reach its full significance until 
chemistry had revealed the constitution of matter, and 
the reciprocal action of its elements: only then was it 
possible to arrive at the great organic laws of waste 
and repair, of digestion, nutrition, and respiration. The 
brain, in its functional exercise, was found to depend, 
equally with all other living parts, upon these processes. 
The discovery of the minuter structure of the brain 
resulted from the application of the perfected micro- 
scope. Its grey matter was found to consist of cells, 
and the white substance of fibres of amazing minuteness 
— the cells being regarded as the sources of nerve- 
power, while the fi-bres serve as lines for its discharge. 

When a tolerably clear conception of the structure of 
the nervous system had been reached, physiology imme- 
diately propounded the question of its mode of action. 
The first decisive response was made a number of years 
ago, by Sir Charles Bell, who found that there are two 



SCIENTinC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 379 

great systems of nerves, which perform different functions ; 
one conveying impressions from the surface of the body 
to the centres, and another transmitting impulses from 
the centres to the muscles, and thus controlling me- 
chanical movement. This discovery was of the gravest 
importance. It had been contemptuously asked, What 
has anatomy to do with mind ? Bell silenced this cavil- 
ling for ever by showing that it first revealed a definite 
mental mechanism, and traced out some of the funda- 
mental conditions of the working of mind. 

A few years later. Dr. Marshall Hall made another 
very important step, in determining the organic condi- 
tions of mental activity, by the discovery of the inde- 
pendent action of the spinal cord. It had hitherto 
been held, that the brain was the sole seat of nervous 
power. All impressions were supposed to be conducted 
directly to it, and all mandates to the muscles to issue 
from it ; and as the brain was the seat of consciousness 
and volition, these operations were thought to be essen- 
tially involved in every bodily action. But Dr. Hall 
demonstrated that the spinal cord is itself a chain of 
nerve-centres, and that impressions reaching it from the 
surface through the sensory nerves, may be immediately 
reflected back, through the motor nerves, upon the 
muscles, thus producing bodily movements, without the 
brain being at all involved. This is termed reflex action. 
Thus, if the foot of a sleeper be tickled, it will be jerked 
away — that is, the impression from the skin is conveyed 
to the spinal centre, and an impulse is immediately 
reflected back, which contracts the proper muscles of 
the limbs, and the foot is withdrawn. The most perfect 
example of it, however, is where stimulus at the surface 
produces movements of the limbs after division of the 



380 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

cord from the head, and therefore in total unconscious- 
ness. The discovery of reflex action was the first step 
in the systematic elucidation of the spontaneous move- 
ments, or what is known as the automatic system in 
animal mechanisms. 

But reflex action has another aspect. When an im- 
pression passes upward along the cord to the nervous 
masses at the base of the brain, it first flashes into con- 
sc'iousness and becomes a sensation. Reflex effects now 
take place, in which sensation and consciousness are 
implicated. Winking-, sneezing, coughing, swallowing, 
are examples : Ave are conscious of the actions, but they 
are not the results of volition. The will may, indeed, 
exert a partial control over them, but they are usually of 
an automatic character. Thus far, the part of the nervous 
mechanism called into action is the spinal system, and 
the ganglionic masses at the base of the brain known as 
the sensorium. This apparatus is not peculiar to man ; 
he shares it with the entire vertebrate series, and it is 
regarded as the source of all purely instinctive actions. 

The establishment of these fundamental facts in re- 
ference to the working of the mental mechanism of our 
nature— the definite separation of a large part of its 
actions from that higher sphere of intellection and voli- 
tion to which they had hitherto been assigned, was a 
signal event in the progress of physiological inquiry, 
as it quickly led to the extension of the principle of 
automatism, to the cerebrum itself. This portion of the 
brain is now regarded as the organ of all the higher 
mental activities ; — the seat of ideas and of the complex 
intellectual operations, memory, imagination, reason, 
volition. The most obvious case of reflex cerebral action 
is where a remembered or suggested idea produces a 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 38 1 

spontaneous movement. Thus, the recollection of a 
ludicrous incident may excite an involuntary burst of 
laughter, the remembrance of a disgusting taste may 
cause vomiting. When ideas are associated with pleasure 
or pain, a class of powerful feelings is produced, — the 
emotions, which become the springs of impulsion, or 
reflex activity. Those bursts of movement which are 
peculiar to the various emotions, as anger, terror, joy, 
and which we term their expressions, are examples of 
cerebral spontaneity. 

These facts prepare us- to understand the scope and 
limits of voluntary activity, the function of which is to 
restrain the impulsive tendencies, and direct the bodily 
movements to various ends. In voluntary action the will 
does not replace or dispense with the involuntary system, 
but rather nses it. Its action is limited by the laws of 
the vital mechanism with which it works. Of all the 
numberless movements going on in the organism, voli- 
tion has control only of the muscular, and of these 
but partially. It cannot act directly upon the muscles, 
but liberates nerve-force in the brain, which, in turn, 
produces muscular contraction. The voluntary powers 
determine the end to be accomplished ; and employ the 
automatic system to execute the determination. I will 
a given action, and of the many hundred muscles in my 
system, a certain, and perhaps a large number, will b6 
called into simultaneous exercise, requiring the most 
marvellous combinations of separate actions to accom- 
plish it ; but the will knows nothing of this, it is con- 
cerned with the result alone. 

In the formation of habits and in the processes of 
education, voluntary actions are constantly becoming 
reflex, or, as it is termed, " secondarily autom.atic." Thus 



382 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

learning to walk at first demands voluntary effort, but 
at length the act of walking becomes automatic and 
unconscious. So with all adaptive movements, as the 
manipulatory exercises of the arts ; they at first require 
an effort of will, and then gradually become "mechani- 
cal," or are performed with but slight voluntary exertion. 
And so it is, also, in the purely intellectual operations, 
where the cerebral excitement, instead of taking effect 
upon the motor system, expends itself in the production 
of new intellectual effects, one state of consciousness 
passing into another, according to the established laws of 
thought. Here, also, the agency of the will is but partial, 
and the mental actions are largely spontaneous. In the 
case of memory, we all know how little volition can 
directly effect. We cannot call up an idea by simply 
tvilling it. When we try to remember something, which 
is, of course, out of consciousness, the office of volition is 
simply to fix the attention upon various ideas which 
will be most likely to recall, by the law of association, 
the thing desired. We have all experienced this impo- 
tence of the will to recover a forgotten name, or incident 
which may subsequently flash into consciousness after 
the attention has long been withdrawn from the search. 
The same thing is observed in the exercise of the imagi- 
nation. It is said of eminent poets, painters, and musi- 
cians, that they are born, and not made ; that is, their 
genius is an endowment of nature, — a gifted organism 
which spontaneously utters itself in high achievements, 
and they often present cases of remarkable automatism. 
When Mozart was asked how he set to work to com- 
pose a symphony he replied, " If you once tJiink how 
you are to do it, you will never write anything worth 
hearing ; I write because I cannot help it." Jean Paul 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 383 

remarks of the poet's work : " The character nuist 
appear living before you, and you must hear it, nol 
merely see it ; it must, as takes place in dreams, dictate 
to you, not you to it. A poet who must reflect whether, 
in a given case, he will make his character say Yes, or 
No, to the devil with him!" An author may be as much 
astonished at the brilliancy of his unwilled inspirations 
as his most partial reader. " That's splendid ! " exclaimed 
Thackeray, as he struck the table in admiring surprise 
at the utterance of one of his characters in the story he 
was writing. Again, the mental actions Avhich constitute 
reasoning, have an undoubted spontaneous element, the 
office of volition being, as in the former cases, to rivet 
the attention to the subject of inquiry, while the gradual 
blending of the like in different ideas into general con- 
ceptions is the work of the involuntary faculties. You 
cannot will a logical conclusion, but only maintain 
steadily before the mind the problem to be solved. 
Sir Isaac Newton thus discloses the secret of his im- 
mortal discoveries : " I keep the subject constantly 
before me, and wait till the first dawnings open, by 
little and little, into a full light." 

But corporeal agency in processes of thought has an 
aspect still more marked ; the higher intellectual opera- 
tions may take place, not only independent of the 
will, but also independent of consciousness itself. Con- 
sciousness and mind are far from being one and the 
same thing. The former applies only to that which is 
at any time present in thought ; the latter comprehends 
all psychical activity. Not a thousandth part of our 
knowledge is at any time in consciousness, but it is all 
and always in the mind. An idea or feeling passes out of 
consciousness, but not into annihilation ; in what state, 



384 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

then, is it ? Wc cannot be satisfied with the indefinite 
statement, that it is stored away in the receptacle or 
chamber of memory. Science affirms an organ of mind, 
and demands an explanation, in terms of its action. As 
the thought passes from consciousness, something re- 
mains in the cerebral substratum, call it what you will, 
— trace, impression, residue. What the precise character 
of these residua may be, is perhaps questionable, but 
it is impossible to deny their existence in some form 
consistent with the nature of the cerebral structure 
and activity. All thoughts, feelings, and impressions, 
when disappearing from consciousness, leave behind 
them in the nerve substance, their effects or residua, 
and in this state they constitute what may be termed 
latent or statical mind. They are brought into consci- 
ousness by the laws of association, and there is much 
probability that, in this unconscious state, they are still 
capable of acting and reacting, and of working out true 
intellectual results. 

There are few who have not had experience of this 
unconscious working of the mind. It often happens that 
we pursue a subject until arrested by difficulties which 
we cannot conquer, when, after dismissing it entirely 
from the thoughts for a considerable interval, and then 
taking it up again, the obscurity and confusion are found 
to have cleared away, the subject is opened in quite new 
relations, and marked intellectual progress has been 
made. Nor can we explain this by assuming that the 
arrest was simply due to weariness, and the clearer in- 
sight to the restoration of vigour by rest, as after a 
refreshing night's sleep. Time enters largely as an 
element of the case ; weeks and months arc often re- 
quired to produce the result, while the entirely new 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE, 385 

development which the subject is found to have under- 
gone, seems only explicable by the intermediate and 
unconscious activity of the cerebral centre. The brain 
also receives impressions and accumulates residua in 
partial or total unconsciousness. Tn reading, for ex- 
ample, we gather the sense of an author most perfectly 
while almost oblivious of the separate words. And thus, 
as Dr. Maudsley remarks, " the brain not only receives 
impressions unconsciously, registers impressions, without 
the co-operation of consciousness, elaborates material 
unconsciously, calls latent residua again into activity, 
without consciousness, but it responds also as an organ 
of organic life to the internal stimuli, which it receives 
unconsciously from other organs of the body." * 

Science now teaches that we know nothing of mental 
action, except through nervous action, without which 
there is neither thought, recollection, nor reason. An 
eminent authority upon this subject, Dr. Bucknill, says, 
" The activity of the vesicular neurine of the brain is the 
occasion of all these capabilities. The little cells are the 
agents of all that is called mind, of all our sensations, 
thoughts, and desires; and the growth and renovation 
of these cells are the most ultimate conditions of mind 
with which we are acquainted." And again, "Not a thrill 
of sensation can occur, not a flashing thought, or a pass- 
ing feeling can take place without a change in the living 
organism, much less can diseased sensation, thought, or 
feeling occur without such changes." 

These facts sufficiently disclose the agency of the 
bodily system in carrying on mental action; but the 
view becomes still more im.pressive when we observe to 

* The Physiology and Pathology of Mind, by Dr. Maudsley, p. ao. 
18 



386 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

what an extent corporeal conditions influence and de- 
termine intellectual states. 

The weight of the human brain ranges from sixty-four 
ounces to twenty ounces, and, other things being equal, 
the scale of intellectual power is held to correspond with 
its mass. Cerebral action has thus an enormous range 
of limitation, due to the variable volume of the mental 
organ, but it is also modified in numerous ways and 
numberless degrees by accompanying physiological con- 
ditions. The brain is an organ of power ; power depends 
upon change, and change upon circulation ; the lungs 
and heart are, therefore, immediately involved. To high 
and sustained mental power, ample lungs and a vigorous 
heart are essential. And these organs, again, fall back 
upon the digestive apparatus, which, if feeble, may im- 
pair the capacity of a good heart, sound lungs, and a 
well-constituted brain. Digestion, and even the caprice 
of appetite, thus stand in direct dynamic relation to 
intellectual results. 

As the brain is more largely dependent than any other 
organ upon the torrent of blood which pours through 
it, we find that even a transient variation in the supply 
disturbs the course of thought. If a portion of the skull 
is removed, and pressure be made upon the brain, 
consciousness disappears, and the same thing occurs 
in fainting, from suspension of the circulation. With 
invigorated action of the heart, there is a general exalta- 
tion of the mental powers, while an enfeebled circulation 
depresses mental activity. Apoplectic congestion pro- 
duces stupor and insensibility; inflammation of the grey 
substance causes delirium ; while inflammation of the 
fibrous portion produces torpor and diminishes the 
power of the will over the muscles. In thus saying 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 387 

that the state of the blood influences the mind, we do 
not use the term mind in any vague or abstract sense ; 
we mean that it afifects our views, opinions, feelings, 
judgments, actions. Change of circulation alters our 
mental pitch, and, with it, our relation to the universe. 
Dr. Laycock observes : — " In the earliest stage of general, 
paralysis there is a feeling of energy. Everything, 
therefore, appears hopeful to the patient; large enter- 
prizes, the success of which he never doubts, occupy 
his mind, and he rushes sometimes into the most ex- 
travagant and wasteful speculations. This is the stage 
of erethism of the capillaries of the part of the brain 
affected, when it is just sufficient to excite increased 
cerebral vigour. If, however, from any cause, this 
activity declines, so as to sink below par, a precisely 
opposite state of consciousness arises, and the patient 
may fall into a profound melancholy, and be insanely 
hopeless, distrustful, and anxious as to all events, past, 
present, and to come."* Even the variation in the 
quantity of blood which enters the brain, by simply 
taking the recumbent position, may affect mental ac- 
tivity in a marked degree. Persons who, through over- 
exertion of mind, have impaired the contractility of the 
cerebral vessels, often become intensely wakeful after 
lying down, although very drowsy before, and some- 
times can only sleep in the erect position. Dendy 
mentions the case of an individual who, when he retired 
to rest, was constantly haunted by a spectre, which 
attempted to take his life ; though, when he raised him- 
self in bed, the phantom vanished. 

Persons have had their entire character changed by an 
apparently trifling interference with tho circulation, of 

* CorreLatious of Consciousness and Organization. Vol. ii., page 325. 



388 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

blood in the head. "A person of my acquaintance," 
says Dr. Hammond, " was naturally of good disposition, 
amiable, and considerate ; but after an attack of vertigo, 
attended with unconsciousness of but a few minutes' 
duration, his whole mental organization was changed ; 
he became deceitful, morose, and overbearing." Tuke 
and Bucknill mention the instance of a conscientious lady, 
who recovered from the brain-congestion accompanying 
small-pox with her disposition greatly changed. The 
susceptibility of conscience had increased to a state of 
actual disease, disturbing her happiness, and disqualify- 
ing her for the duties of life. 

A blow on the hea:d may produce marked mental 
derangement. The memory may be dislocated, events 
obliterated, and whole passages from the past life ex- 
punged : the faculty of speech may be partially or 
wholly destroyed, the memory of words confused, or 
entire parts of speech lost. 

Mental perversions are also caused by certain 
changes in the properties of the blood. A fluid of 
amazing complexity, holding in exquisite balance the 
constituents from which the whole being is elaborated, 
all delicacies of feeling and niceties of thought depend 
upon its purity. " Polished steel is not quicker dimmed 
by the slightest breath than is the brain affected by 
some abnormal conditions of the blood." 

If the poisonous products of bodily waste are not con- 
stantly swept from the system, the cerebral changes arc 
disturbed and the mind stupified. Foods, drinks, and 
drugs affect specifically the appetites, passions, and 
thoughts. To become exhilarated and joyous, man 
charges his blood with wine; to exalt the sensations, 
he takes hashish ; to secure a brilliant fancy and luxu- 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 389 

rious imagination, he uses opium ; to abolish conscious- 
ness of pain, he breathes vapour of chloroform. Sweden- 
borg had a peculiar class of visions " after coffee." *' A 
person I know," observes Dr. Laycock, " after taking 
morphine, in a fever, was haunted by hideously gro- 
tesque and fiend-like spectres ; they then shortly changed 
into groups of comical human faces, and finally altered 
to forms of the human figure of the most classic beauty, 
and then disappeared." And this learned inquirer main- 
tains that the pictorial productions of the insane vary in 
a definite order, the early stages of excitement enabling 
the artist to execute beautiful conceptions of figures and 
landscapes ; then, as the disease advances, he passes 
into comic delineations, and ends with the grotesque, or 
hideous. 

Those fluctuations of feeling with which all are more 
or less familiar, the alternations of hope and despon- 
dency, are vitally connected with organic states. In high 
health, the outlook is confident, there is joy in action, 
and courage in enterprise ; but with a low or disturbed 
circulation, thin, morbid blood, and bodily exhaustion, 
there is depression of spirits, gloom, inaction, paralysis 
of will, and weariness of life. That variability of mental 
state which is so striking and general an experience 
with the literary and artistic classes, the periods when 
work is impossible, the moods of sluggish and unsatis- 
factory effort, the seasons of steady and successful 
accomplishment, and the moments of rare exaltation, 
capricious as they may seem, are but the exponents of 
varying constitutional conditions. 

But the part played by the organism becomes still more 
apparent when we consider the mode of action of the 
nervous system in producing mental effects. It has been 



390 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

stated that this system is composed of fibres and cells ; 
hence the simplest conceivable case of nervous activity is 
where a cell and fibre become active, producing an excite- 
ment and a discharge ; the highest action of the organ 
being nothing more than a complex system of excite- 
n^-nts and discharges. In sleep, for example, a fly lights 
upon the face, producing an impression, or change, which 
causes a discharge along the nerves to the grey matter 
of the spinal cord. Here force is again liberated, which 
is discharged along another set of nerves upon the 
appropriate muscles, which, being contracted, bring the 
hand to the place where the fly settled. This is the 
course of power in a simple reflex action. But when the 
brain is called into conscious exercise in the higher 
processes of intellection just the same thing occurs. 
A person may be engaged in tranquil thinking, when 
one idea leads on to another in a natural train of asso- 
ciation, that is, Avhcrc the excitement of one state of 
consciousness is discharged into another, forming a suc- 
cession of cerebral changes. In this quiet course of 
thought, a ludicrous idea, or a witty combination may 
arise, when a large amount of feeling, or nerve excite- 
liicnt, is suddenly awakened. This may be discharged 
in several directions. One portion may be spent upon 
the muscles of the face and chest, producing laughter ; 
another portion may pass along the nerves leading to the 
stomach, perhaps stimulating digestion ; and a third 
may be expended in producing other states of con- 
sciousness, or new trains of ideas. Mental action is thus 
manifested as definite and limited nervous action, and 
when we speak of the unfolding of mind, as in educa- 
tion, the fact signified is the growing adaptation of the 
brain and nervous apparatus to produce more and more 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 391 

complex effects in accordance with their necessary mode 
of working. 

The child comes into the world a little fountain of 
spontaneous power. For certain purposes its nervous 
mechanism is perfected, channels of discharge are open, 
connexions are ready formed, and reflex actions go on 
from the first. The infant also inherits the capabilities 
of its type ; that is, the possibility of high development 
which belongs to man as distinguished from inferior 
creatures, and it also inherits the special tendencies 
and aptitudes of its particular ancestors. The order 
of the surrounding universe now begins to take effect 
upon it, and working within its organic limits, which of 
course vary widely in different cases, its education 
begins. Impressions pour in through the senses, and 
begin to open channels of discharge through the nerve 
centres. The child sees and desires an object, but 
has more or less difficulty in connecting the sensation 
with the movement necessary to seize it. By numberless 
efforts a nervous path is at length formed, and when a 
desirable object is seen, the sensation discharges upon 
the proper muscles, producing a suitable movement, and 
the hand grasps it. So with walking and speaking ; by 
repeated exertions lines of nervous discharge are com- 
pleted, and the sensations involved are co-ordinated with 
the movements of locomotion and utterance. Repetition 
strengthens association and facilitates action ; that which 
is difficult at first, requiring a large expenditure of volun- 
tary effort, at last seems " to go of itself." Upon this 
point Dr. Carpenter remarks, " There can be no doubt 
that the nerve-force is disposed to pass in special tracks, 
and it seems probable that whilst some are originally 
marked out for the automatic movements, others may be 



392 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

gradually worn in by the habitual action of the will, and 
that thus when a train of sequential actions originally 
directed by the will has been once set in operation, it 
may continue without any further influence from that 
source." * 

Thus, in committing to memory a poem, or in learning 
a piece of music, voluntary effort wears a path of asso- 
ciation, so that each word or sound automatically 
suggests the next, and we can either repeat the words 
or hum the air in silence, or link on the automatic move- 
ments of expression : but by sufficient repetition the 
words and sounds become so closely associated, that 
when the first bar of the melody, or the first stanza of 
the poem is awakened, it will cost an effort to prevent 
running through with them. In this way, as the child 
grows to maturity, brain connexions are established 
between sensations, ideas, and movements ; they become 
automatic and powerful, and give rise to fixed habits. 
Peculiarities of gait, attitude, gesture, and speech, and 
the iteration of set phrases, become partially automatic ; 
their paths of discharge getting so deeply worn that 
repetition occurs involuntarily. The same thing is seen 
also in the higher region of ideas and beliefs. Long- 
established associations and opinions survive their re- 
jection by reason : convince a man of his life-long 
errors to-day and he re-asserts them to-morrow, so 
strong is the tendency of thought to move in its long- 
accustomed cerebral tracks. 

Now, when we experience a feeling, or think a thought, 
or determine an act, that is, in every case of excitement 
and discharge, there is a partial decomposition of the 

* Principles of Human Physiology. Fifth Edition, page 699. 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 393 

nervous structure in action. In eveiy such act there is 
loss of energy, or partial exhaustion, the cells and fibres 
fall below par, and the equilibrium is restored by the 
nutrition of the weakened part. Brain-repair thus takes 
place, i?i accorda7ice with the modes of mental action, and, 
as in the blacksmith's arm muscular nutrition is com- 
mensurate with its exercise, and augments power, so in 
every special kind of mental exercise, cerebral nutrition 
co-operates to raise the standard of nervous power. As 
waste accompanies exercise, and repair follows waste, 
the nutrition of the organ is determined by the modes 
of mental activity — given associations and ideas become 
patterns, as it were, in conformity to which the brain 
is moulded. In this way the organic processes re-inforce 
mental acquisition, and assimilation tends to perpetuate 
states of feeling and modes of thought and action. 
Throughout infancy, childhood, and youth, when nutri- 
tion is in excess, the brain is thus adapted to its cir- 
cumstances, and groivs to the order of impressions and 
ideas which it receives. 

We have seen that the office of volition is to deter- 
mine the course of thought and direct bodily actions to 
specific ends. This capability is the noblest element of 
our nature, but is greatly variable in different individuals 
by habit and constitution, and is inexorably limited 
in all. The will is not an absolute Despot, with un- 
bounded authority to do what it lists, but rather a consti- 
tutional President, exercising vast power, it may be, but 
strictly subject to the laws of the organic state. Its 
regnant prerogative, as Ave have seen, is that of control- 
ling the attention, by which it is enabled to wield the 
entire energy of the organism to the accomplishment of 
its purposes. In this way the automatic system becomes 



394 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

a means of exalting the office of volition, and making 
it in an eminent degree the arbiter of individual destiny. 
But in the exercise of its prerogative the will is governed 
by the same great law which rules all the other powers, 
namely, the acquirement of strength by exercise. Only 
through that constant exertion by which energy is accu- 
mulated can the will gain command of the thoughts and 
mastery of the impulses. By continual practice the or- 
ganism grows, as it were, into subordination, and the 
voluntary powers become habitually predominant. The 
will is thus, in an eminent degree, capable of education, 
but when we see how it is enfeebled in bodily debility 
and utterly extinguished in numerous morbid states of 
the system, it becomes apparent to what an extent 
physiological conditions must enter into the policy of 
its intelligent management. Even its limited freedom, 
as physicians well understand, is only coincident with 
healthy bodily action. 

Sup's :ient, I trust, has now been said, to show that 
mental operations are so inextricably interwoven with 
corporeal actions, that to study them successfully apart 
is altogether impossible. The mental life and the bodily 
life are manifestations of the same organism, growing 
together, fluctuating together, declining together. They 
depend upon common laws, which must be investigated 
by a common method ; and science, in unravelling the 
mysteries of the body, has thrown important light upon 
the workings of the mind. It only remains now to 
point out, that when subjected to the Baconian test of 
" fruitfulness " — of practical application to the emergen- 
cies of experience, the scientific method of regarding 
human nature, incomplete as it may be, already stands 
in marked contrast to the proverbial barrenness of the 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 395 

old metaphysics. I will briefly refer to two or three 
such applications. 

One of the gloomiest chapters of man's social his- 
tory is that which records the treatment of the insane. 
Those upon whom had fallen the heaviest calamity pos- 
sible in life, were looked upon with horror, as accursed 
of God, and treated with a degree of cruelty which 
seems now incredible. Asylums were dark and dismal 
jails, where their inmates were left in cold, hunger, and 
filth, to be chained and lashed at the caprice of savage 
keepers. And this barbarism continued in countries 
claiming to be enlightened down to the middle of the 
present century. Let me mention a solitary instance, of 
which the literature of the subject is full. 

Said Dr. Conolly, in a lecture in 1847: " It was in the 
Female Infirmary at Hanwell, exactly seven years ago, 
that I found, among other examples of the forgetfulness 
of what was due either to the sick or insane, a young 
woman lying in a crib, bound to the middle of it by a 
strap around the waist, to the sides of it by the hands, 
to the foot of it by the ankles, and to the head of it by 
the neck ; she also had her hands in the hard leathern 
terminations of canvas sleeves. She could not turn, nor 
lie on her side, nor lift her hand to her face, and her 
appearance was miserable beyond the power of words to 
describe. That she was almost always wet and dirty, it is 
scarcely necessary to say. But the principal point I wish to 
illustrate by mentioning this case is, that it was a feeble 
and sick woman who was thus treated. At that very 
time her whole skin was covered with neglected scabies, 
and she was suffering all the torture of a large and deep- 
seated abscess of the breast." " Again," he remarks, " old 
and young, men and women, the frantic and the melan- 



396 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

choly, were treated worse and more neglected than the 
beasts of the field. The cells of an asylum resembled the 
dens of a squalid menagerie ; the straw was raked out, 
and the food was thrown in through the bars, and exhi- 
bitions of madness were witnessed which are no longer to 
be found, because they were not the simple product of 
malady, but of malady aggravated by mis-management." 
Now, these statements represent a condition of things 
as old as histor}'-, and we are called upon to account 
for it. Granting that the insane were dangerous, and 
required restraint, and granting all that may be urged 
concerning the barbarity of the times, we have yet to 
find the cause of the apparently gratuitous ferocity of 
which they were the victims; and this we do find in 
the legitimate consequences of the prevailing theory of 
human nature. The ancient philosophy taught that the 
body is to be despised, degraded, renounced. This view 
was adopted by theology, and thrown into a concrete 
and dramatic shape, which made it more capable of vivid 
realization by the multitude. It pronounced the body 
to be " a sink of iniquity," the " intrenchment of Satan," 
a fit residence for demons. The lunatic was one who had 
incurred Divine displeasure, and was given over to the 
powers of darkness, by whom he was " possessed." This 
doctrine, of which witchcraft was one of the develop- 
ments, abundantly explains the attitude of society to- 
wards the victims of mental disorder. What more 
suitable than dungeons, scourgings, and tortures for 
the detested wretch, who was thus manifestly forsaken 
of God, and delivered over to the Devil ,-' The merciless 
brute who inflicted untold sufferings upon these unhappy 
beings deemed himself, like the Inquisitor, but an instru- 
ment for executing the will of Heaven. 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 397 

It availed nothing that, for thousands of years, there 
had been a broad current of intense and powerful thought 
in the channels of poetry, polemics, oratory, philosophy, 
politics, theology, and devotion. All this multifarious 
culture was powerless to arrest the evil consequences of 
a radically erroneous view of human nature, for the 
simple reason that the discovery of truth was not among 
its objects. It was only when a class of men, partici- 
pating in the new spirit of modern times, and drawn to 
the investigation by the necessities of their profession, 
entered earnestly upon the study of the body, that views 
were reached which have revolutionized and humanized 
the treatment of the insane. Discovering that the mind 
is dependent upon the organism, and that its disordered 
manifestations are the results of organic derangement, 
they found that insanity is not a devil to be exorcised, 
but a disease to be cured. After a sharp struggle with 
popular ignorance and traditional prejudice, the better 
views have triumphed, and society is beginning to reap 
the beneficent consequences of their labours : the stern 
and violent measures, that served but to aggravate the 
malady, have given place to gentle and kindly treat- 
ment, which is found to be of itself a most potent means 
of restoration. 

The management of the idiotic, or feeble-minded, 
equally illustrates the argument. Throughout the past 
no movement was made for the relief of this wretched 
class, and no one dreamed that anything could be done 
for them ; but the progress of Physiology has made a 
new revelation in this field also. Dr. Edward Seguin, in 
liis recent able Avork upon " The Treatment of Idiocy by 
the Physiological Method," observes : " Idiots could not 
be educated by the methods, nor cured by the treatment, 



398 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

practised prior to 1837; but most idiots, and children 
proximate to them, may be reheved, in a more or less 
complete measure, of their disabilities by the physiolo- 
gical mode of education." 

These facts have a profound significance. They not 
only show that to be practicable which the world had 
never suspected to be possible, and that science is txwt 
to her beneficent mission in the higher sphere as well as 
in the lower; they not only show that a change of 
method in the study of human nature ended some of 
the grossest barbarisms of the past, but they involve this 
deeper result — that by reaching a knowledge of the true 
causes of insanity and imbecility, we gain command 
of the means of their prevention, and arrive at the 
principles of mental hygiene. And this leads to the 
consideration of those wider consequences to society at 
large which the modern method of inquiry is beginning 
to produce. 

This is perhaps best illustrated in the establishment 
of what may be called the law of mental limitations. 
The old contrast between matter and mind led to the 
growth of an all-prevalent error upon this point. To 
matter belongs extension or limitation in space ; but 
mind is inextended, and therefore it has been inferred 
to be unlimited : being indefinite, it was supposed to be 
unbounded in its nature. But force also is inextended, 
although rigorously limited and measurable; and as 
mind is nothing more nor less than mental power, it 
must be subject to the laws of power, and work within 
quantitative limits, like any other form of force. Power, 
again, is but the accompaniment of material change, 
and is, hence, restricted in quantity by the amount of 
that change; and as mind is accompanied by cerebral 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 399 

transformation, it must have a necessary limit in the 
quantity of cerebral transformation. In, therefore, con- 
sidering man as a being in whom mind is conditioned 
by a bodily organism, the limitation of mental effects 
becomes a practical question of the very highest im- 
portance. 

The doctrine of the conservation of energy and the 
mutual convertibility of the various forces, is now ac- 
cepted as a fundamental truth of science. Nor is there 
any ground for regarding the vital forces as an exception 
to the principle. That the organism cannot create its 
own force, that its energy is entirely derived from the 
food ingested, and which, in this point of view, is merely 
stored force, is beyond question; and the source being 
thus limited, that its expenditure in one direction makes 
it impossible to use it in another, is equally evident. 
This principle applies, even in a more marked degree, 
to the cerebral system. Every one knows that hearty 
digestion and violent exercise lower the mental activity, 
that is, the forces are diverted from the brain, and 
thrown upon the stomach and muscles. 

That the purely intellectual powers are also subject to 
limitation is unquestionable. All minds are fissured with 
incapacities in one direction or another, — clipped away 
on this side or on that, — all are fragmentary. There \ 
may be great mathematical ability, but no imagination ; ^ 
\ fine poetical gifts, without logical faculty ; large executive / 
<^-power, coupled with deficient judgment. Dr. Whevvell / 
\ had a powerful memory for books, but a very bad one \ 
! for persons ; Sir William Hamilton cultivated the lore 
/ and history of philosophy, at the expense of his power of 
[ origination and organization ; Prescott was so irresolute 
\that he could only spur himself to his literary tasks 



400 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

by the stimulus of betting with his secretary that 
he would do a certain amount of work in a given 
time; Theodore Parker was loaded with erudition, 
but exclaimed on his premature death-bed, " Oh, that 
I had known the art of life, or found some book, 
or some man to tell me how to live, to study, to take 
exercise." The greatest men are all dunces in some- 
thing : Shakspeare and Newton illustrate the law as 
absolutely as the veriest weakling of the asylum. The 
full-orbed intellect is yet to come, and will doubtless 
bring with it the "perpetual motion," and the Jew's 
" Messias." 

These phenomena find no explanation in the old 
hypothesis of mind as a vague, spiritual entity; they 
tlirow us back immediately on the organism whose ac- 
knowledged limitations offer at once a solution of the 
mystery. These mental inaptitudes may be either or- 
ganic deficiencies, or a result of concentrating the cerebral 
energy in certain directions, and its consequent with- 
drawal from others. Thus viewed, every attainment 
involves the exercise of brain-power — each acquisition 
is a modification of cerebral structure. All sensations 
of objects and words that we remember, all acquired 
aptitudes of movement ; the associations of the percep- 
tion of things with visible symbols, vocal actions and 
sounds, the connexions of ideas with feelings and 
emotions, and the formation of intellectual and moral 
habits, are all concomitants and consequents of the only 
kind of action of which the brain is capable — are all 
the products of organic nutrition ; and the rate and 
limit of acquisition, as well as the capacity for reten- 
tion, are conditioned upon the completeness of the 
nutritive processes. As each acquirement involves a 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 4OI 

growth, it is evident that acquisition may reach a point 
at which the whole organic force is consumed in con- 
serving it, and further attainments can only be made at 
the expense of the decay and loss of old ones. Hence, 
if we overburden the brain, as in school-" cramming," 
nutrition is imperfect, adhesion feeble, and acquisition 
quickly lost. 

The one great physiological law upon which bodily 
and mental health are alike dependent, is the alternation 
of action and repose which results from the limitation 
of power. The eternal equation of vital vigour is, rest 
equals exercise. That tendency to rhythmic action, which 
seems to mark all displays of power in the universe, is 
conspicuously manifested in the organic economy, allow- 
ing the muscles of respiration eight hours' repose out of 
twenty-four, and six hours' rest to those of the heart. 
The cerebral rhythm is diurnal : except that rest which 
parts of the brain may obtain when only other parts are 
in action, the organ finds its appropriate repose in sleep. 
" Half our days we spend in the shadow of the earth, 
and the brother of death extracteth a third part of our 
lives," says the eloquent Sir Thomas Browne ; that is, 
the periodicities of cerebral action are defined by astro- 
nomic cycles ; the brain and the solar system march 
together. Exercise and repose are equally indispens- 
able to mental vigour; deficiency of exercise produces 
mental feebleness; deficiency of rest, disease. But there 
lurks in this statement a deeper and more dangerous 
meaning than at first appears. The equilibrium once 
lost is most difficult to restore, — there is a fatal per- 
sistence in the morbid state. It is a general law of 
the animal economy, that when the vital powers are, 
from any cause, depressed below a certain point, they 



402 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

are not easily, and sometimes are never, repaired. A 
large loss of blood, or a profound exhaustion, may entail 
effects upon the constitution which will last for years, 
perhaps for life. As might be expected, the brain illus- 
trates this principle more impressively than any other 
portion of the system : if worked beyond its limits, there 
is produced a rapid exhaustion of power which renders 
repose impossible. The exhaustion of over-work is ac- 
companied by excitement, which tends to perpetuate the 
work and accelerate the exhaustion. The will is thus 
swamped in the uncontrollable mobility of the automatic 
system, the attention becomes insanely exalted, the brain 
will not be ordered to rest, and words of warning are 
wasted. When his physicians admonished Sir Walter 
Scott of the impending consequences of excessive mental 
labour, he sadly replied : " As for bidding me not work, 
you might as well tell Molly to put the kettle on the 
fire, and then say, ' now don't boil.' " 

We live in an age of intense mental activity and ever- 
increasing cerebral strain. Steam and electricity are 
tasked to bring daily tidings of what is happening all 
over the world, and impressions pour in upon the brain 
at a rate with which nothing in the past is comparable. 
The fierce competitions of business, fashion, study, and 
political ambition, are at work to sap the vigour and rack 
the integrity of the mental fabric, and there can be no 
doubt that there is, in consequence, an immense amount 
of latent brain disease, productive of much secret suffer- 
ing and slight aberrations of conduct, and which is liable, 
in any sudden stress of circumstances, to break out into 
permanent mental derangement. The price we pay for 
our high-pressure civilization is a fearful increase of 
cerebral exhaustion and disorder, and an augmenting 



u. 



ory 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 403 

ratio of shattered intellects. We are startled when some 
conspicuous mind, strained beyond endurance, as in the 
cases of Hugh Miller, or Admiral Fitzroy, crashes into 
insanity and suicide, yet these are but symptoms of the 
prevailing tendencies of modern life. 

And here I call attention to the deep defects of that 
predominant scheme of culture which not only ignores 
the human brain, and the sciences which illustrate it, as 
ol)jccts of earnest systematic study, but explodes upon 
it all the traditional contempt which it cherishes for 
material nature. "This hasty pudding within the skull," 
said Frederick Robertson, as he epitomized, in a single 
expression, the stupid prejudice of the prevailing "scholar- 
ship." Poor Robertson ! smitten down in the midst of a 
noble career, by the consequences of over-tasking, dying 
of brain disease in the prime of manhood : — how cruelly 
did Nature avenge the insult ! 

Men admire the steam-engine of Watt and the calcu- 
lating engine of Babbage ; but how little do they care 
for the thinking engine of the Infinite Artificer ! They 
venerate days, and dogmas, and ceremonials ; but where 
is the reverence that is due to that most sacred of the 
things of time, the organism of the soul ! We speak 
of the glories of the stellar universe; but is not the 
miniature duplicate of that universe in the living brain 
a more transcendent marvel ? We admire the vast 
fabric of society and government, and that complicated 
scheme of duties, responsibilities, usages, and laws which 
constitutes social order; but how few remember that 
all this has its deep foundation in the measured march 
of cerebral transformations. We point to the inven- 
tions, arts, sciences, and literatures, which form the 
swelling tide of civilization ; but were they not all 



404 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

originated in that laboratory of wonders, the human 
brain ? Geological revelations carry us back through 
durations so boundless, that imagination is bewildered, 
and reason reels under the grandeur of the demon- 
stration ; but through the measureless series of ad- 
vancing periods, we discover a stupendous plan. 
Infinite Power, working through infinite time, converges 
the mighty lines of causality to the fulfilment of an 
eternal design, — the birth of an intellectual and moral 
era through the development of the brain of man, 
which thus appears as the final term of an unfolding 
world. 

The ultimate and decisive bearing of the foregoing 
views upon plans and processes of instruction, can 
hardly fail to have been perceived. The scientific 
method of studying human nature, important as may be 
its relation to the management of the insane and feeble- 
minded, and valuable as is its service in establishing the 
limits of mental effort, must find its fullest application to 
the broad subject of education. For, whatever questions 
of the proper subjects to be taught, their relative claims, 
or the true methods of teaching may arise, there is a 
prior and fundamental inquiry into the nature, capabili- 
ties, and requirements of the being to be taught, upon 
the elucidation of which all other questions immediately 
depend. A knowledge of the being to be trained, as it 
is the basis of all intelligent culture, must be the first 
necessity of the teacher. 

Education is an art, like Locomotion, Mining, or 
Bleaching, which may be pursued empirically or ration- 
ally, as a blind habit, or under intelligent guidance ; and 
the relations of science to it are precisely the same as 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 405 

to all the other arts — to ascertain their conditions, and 
give law to their processes. What it has done for Naviga- 
tion, Telegraphy, and War, it will also do for Culture. 
The true method of proceeding may be regarded as 
established, and many important results are already 
reached, though its systematic application is hardly yet 
entered upon. Although there is undoubtedly a growing 
interest in the scientific aspects of the subject, yet what 
Mr. Wyse wrote twenty-five years ago remains still but 
too true. He says, " it is, unquestionably, a singular cir- 
cumstance, that, of all problems, the problem of Education 
is that to which by far the smallest share of persevering 
and vigorous attention has yet been applied. The same 
empiricism which once reigned supreme in the domains 
of chemistry, astronomy, and medicine still retains pos- 
session, in many instances, of those of education. No 
journal is kept of the phenomena of infancy and child- 
hood ; no parent has yet registered, day after day, with 
the attention of an astronomer who prepares his ephe- 
merides, the marvellous developments of his child. 
Until this is done, there can be no solid basis for reason- 
ing ; we must still deal with conjecture." And why has 
nothing been done .-* Because, in the prevailing system 
of culture, the art of observation, which is the beginning 
of all true science, the basis of all intellectual discrimi- 
nation, and the kind of knowledge which is necessary to 
interpret these observations, are universally neglected. 
Our teachers mostly belong to the old dispensation. Their 
preparation is chiefly literary ; if they obtain a little scien- 
tific knowledge, it is for the purpose oi coninmnicatiiigit, 
and not as a means of tutorial guidance. Their art is a 
mechanical routine, and hence, very naturally, while ad- 
mitting the importance of advancing views, they really 



406 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

cannot sec what is to be done about it. When we say that 
education is an affair of the laws of our being, involving 
a wide range of considerations, — an affair of the air re- 
spired, its moisture, temperature, density, purity, and 
electrical state ; an affair of food, digestion, and nutri- 
tion ; of the quantity, quality, and speed of the blood 
sent to the brain ; of clothing and exercise, fatigue and 
repose, health and disease; of variable volition, and 
automatic nerve action ; of fluctuating feeling, redun- 
dancy and exhaustion of nerve-power ; an affair of light, 
colour, sound, resistance ; of sensuous impressibility, tem- 
perament, family history, constitutional predisposition, 
and unconscious influence ; of material surroundings, 
and a host of agencies which stamp themselves upon the 
plastic organism, and reappear in character; in short, 
that it involves that complete acquaintance with cor- 
poreal conditions which science alone can give, — when 
we hint of these things, we seem to be talking in an 
unknown tongue, or, if intelligible, then very irrelevant 
and unpractical. 

That our general education is in a deplorably chaotic 
state, presenting a medley of debased ideals, conflicting 
systems, discordant practices, and unsatisfactory results, 
no observing person will question ; that this state of 
things is to last for ever, we all feel to be impossible ; 
and that its future removal can only come through that 
powerful instrumentality to which we owe advancement 
in other departments of social activity, is equally clear 
to the reflecting. The imminent question is, how may 
the child and youth be developed healthfully and vigor- 
ously, bodily, mentally and morally ; and science alone 
can answer it by a statement of the laws upon which 
that development depends. Ignorance of these laws 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 407 

must inevitably involve mismanagement. That there is 
a large amount of mental perversion, and absolute stu- 
pidity, as well as of bodily disease, produced in school, by 
measures which operate to the prejudice of the growing 
brain, is not to be doubted ; that dulness, indocility, and 
viciousness, are frequently aggravated by teachers, inca- 
pable of discriminating between their mental and bodily 
causes, is also undeniable; while, that teachers often 
miserably fail to improve their pupils, and then report 
the result of their own incompetency z.'s, failures of nattirc, 
all may have seen, although it is now proved that the 
lowest imbeciles are not sunk beneath the possibility of 
elevation. 

The purpose of the foregoing remarks has been to 
bring forward an aspect of man which cannot fail to 
have an important influence upon processes of instruc- 
tion. I have endeavoured to illustrate the extent. to 
which Nature works out her own results in the organism 
of man. The numerous instances of self-made men, 
who, with no external assistance, have risen to intel- 
lectual eminence, and the still more marked instances 
Avhere students have forced their way to • success in 
spite of the hindrances of an irrational culture, testify 
to the power of the spontaneous and self-determinino- 
tendencies of human character, while the general over- 
looking of this fact has unquestionably led to an 
enormous exaggeration of the potency of existino- 
educational methods. In establishing this view, science 
both limits and modifies the function of the instructor. 
It limits it by showing that mental operations are cor- 
poreally conditioned, that large regions of our nature 
are beyond direct control, and that mental attainment 
depends \)\ a great degree upon inherited capacity and 



408 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

organic growth. It limits it by showing that ancestral 
influences come down upon us as we enter the world, 
like the hand of Fate ; that we are born well, or born 
badly, and that whoever is ushered into existence at the 
bottom of the scale, can never rise to the top because 
the weight of the universe is upon him. It shows how 
not to mistake the surface effects of an ostentatious 
system for a thorough in-forming of character ; how not 
to mistake the current smattering of languages, the 
cramming for examinations, the glossing of accomplish- 
ments, the showy and superficial pedantries of literature, 
and the labelling of degrees, for true education. 

The ofiice of the teacher is thus narrowed but not 
denied. If inherited organization is a factor of destiny 
never to be cancelled, there is another factor in that 
culture which rests upon a knowledge of the laws of life 
and character. Science modifies the tutorial offices by 
disclosing the direction of its real work, and guarding 
against waste of effort, and specious and spurious results 
— by showing that education does not consist in the 
acquisition of knowledge to be siphoned into the intel- 
lectual receivers of the school-room, but is rather to direct 
the working of a mechanism over which neither its owner 
nor his teacher is omnipotent — a mechanism in which 
effects follow causes, and which always operates accord- 
ing to law. It shows the Instructor that he must take 
his pupil as he finds him ; not a mental abstraction, to 
be classed with other " minds " and worked by a universal 
formula, but a personal reality — a part of the order 
of nature which never repeats itself in a single case ; 
a being with individual attributes which are inexorably 
bound within the limits of his organization. It therefore 
demands of him to leave the lore which is glorified by 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 409 

tradition until he has thoroughly grounded himself in 
the elements of that knowledge of human nature — of the 
springs of action and the conditions and possibilities of 
real improvement, which alone can confer the highest 
skill in quickening the intellect, and moulding the 
character. - 

I have thus attempted to prove that only by inverting 
the rule of the past, which exalted the mind at the 
expense of the body, and bringing the resources of 
modern induction to the study of the corporeal or- 
ganism, can we arrive at that higher and clearer know-' 
ledge of man, which will make possible anything like a 
true Science of Human Nature. I have pointed out the 
salutary results which have already flowed from this 
method in the crucial test of the treatment of the 
insane ; and the vast benefits which society cannot fail 
to reap from that clearer perception of the laws of 
vital and mental hmltations which recent research has 
so decisively established ; and I have also endeavoured 
to unfold the bearing of this view upon the subject of 
education. But the results enumerated are far from 
exhausting the broad applicabnity of the method. The 
grand characteristic of science is its universality ; what is 
it, indeed, but the latest report of the human mind on 
the order of nature ? Its principles are far-reaching and 
all-inclusive, so that when a knowledge of the true con- 
stitution of man is once attained, it confers insight into 
all the multitudinous phases of human manifestation. 
The same economy of power which science confers In the 
material world, and by which we obtain a maximum of 
effect from a minimum of force, she confers also in the 
world of mind. When we have mastered the laws of 
physical education we have the essential data for dealing 
19 



410 OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

with questions of mental education, and these steps are 
the indispensable preparation for an enlightened moral 
education. And the same knowledge of the organism 
which shows how it may be best developed, gives also 
the clue to the understanding of its aberrant phenomena. 
That mysterious ground which has hitherto been the hot- 
bed of noxious superstitions and dangerous quackeries^ 
is reclaimed to rational investigation, and the remarkable 
effects of reverie, ecstasy, hysteria, hallucinations, spectral 
illusions, dreaming, sornnambulism, mesmerism, religious 
epidemics, and other kindred displays of nervous mor- 
bidity, find adequate explanation in the ascertained laws 
of our being. This kind of knowledge is, furthermore, 
not only of the highest value to all classes for practical 
guidance, but the philosophical students of man, whether 
viewing him in the moral, religious, social, aesthetic, 
ethnological or historic aspects, must find their equal and 
indispensable preparation in the mastery of the biological 
and psychological laws which can alone explain the 
nature of the subject of their research. • 

After what has been said, it will not be supposed that 
I entertain any very extravagant expectations of the 
immediate results to be obtained from improved methods 
of dealing with human nature. On the contrary, one of 
the most impressive lessons of science, is that permanent 
growths are slow, and that there are limits which cannot 
be overpassed. Dealing largely with causes which only 
work out their results in the fulness of time, it teaches 
patience, hope, and labour; and not the least of its 
salutary influences will be, through wholesome discipline 
of the imagination, and a rational control of the sympa- 
thies, to check the waste of power upon impossible 
projects, and restrain those enthusiasms v/Iiich arc born 



SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 



411 



of the feelings rather than of the judgment. Nor do I 
believe that the perfectibility of the human race is at 
hand through the teaching of a little more physiology in 
schools, or that science is to apply a calculus to human 
actions, and thus supersede the common sense and practi- 
cal judgments of mankind. That there is a vast body of 
valid knowledge concerning the nature of man, which is 
reduced to application, and serves for the management of 
conduct, is shown in all the multifarious aspects of social 
activity : I simply hold that this knowledge, valuable as it 
is, is yet imperfect — in many respects deplorably imperfect 
— and must grow to a higher state and a more scientific 
character ; and that the organized culture of the present 
age is bound to help and not to hinder this tendency. 
The time, I think, has come for demanding that the cur- 
riculum of modern liberal education be so reconstructed 
that its courses of study shall have a more direct and pos- 
itive bearing upon that most desirable end — a clearer un- 
derstandino; of the Laws of Human Nature. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX. 

ON UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 
By Sir J, F. W; Herschel, Bart., F.R.S. 

When Sir John Herschel, a few years ago, was residing at the 
Cape of Good Hope, to observe the stars of the southern hemi- 
sphere, he was consulted by Dr. Adamson respecting the scheme of 
instruction for a South African College. His views were given in a 
letter from which the following is an extract : — 

" A good practical system of public education ought, in my 
opinion, to be more real than formal ; I mean, should convey much 
of the positive knowledge, with as little attention to mere systems 
and conventional forms, as is consistent with avoiding solecisms. 
This principle carried into detail would allow much less weight to 
the study of the languages than is usually considered its due in our 
great public schools, where, in fact, the acquisition of'the latter 
seems to be regarded as the one and only object of education, 
while, on the other hand, it would attach great importance to all 
those branches of 'practical and theoretical knowledge whose posses- 
sion goes to constitute an idea of a well-informed gentleman ; as, 
for example, a knowledge of the nature and constitution of the 
world we inhabit, its animal, vegetable, and mineral productions, 
and their uses and properties as subservient to human wants ; its 
relation to the system of the universe, and its natural and political 
subdivisions : and, last and most important of all, the nature and 
propensities of man himself, as developed in the history of nations 
and the biography of individuals ; the constructions of human 
society, including our responsibilities to individuals and to the social 
body of which we are members. In a word, as extensive a know- 
ledge as can be grasped and conveyed in an elementary course, of 
the actual system and the laws of nature, both physical and moral. 

" Again, in a country where free institutions prevail, and where 
public opinion is of consequence, every man is to a certain extent a 
legislator ; and for this his education (especially where the Govern- 
ment of the country lends its aid and sanction to it) ought at least so 
far to prepare him, as to place him on his guard against those obvious 
and popular fallacies which lie across the threshold of this as well 
as of every other subject with which human reason has anything 
to do. Every man is called upon to obev the laws, and therefore 



4i6 



APPENDIX. 



it cannot be deemed superfluous that some portion of eveiy man's 
education should consist in informing him what they are. On these 
grounds, it would seem to me that some knowledge of the principles 
of political economy, of jurisprudence, of trade and manufactures, 
is essentially involved in the notion of a sound education. A mode- 
late acquaintance also with certain of the useful arts, such as prac- 
tical mechanics or engineering, agriculture, draughtsmanship, is of 
obvious iitility in every station in life ; while, in a commercial com- 
munity, the only remedy for that proverbial short-sightedness to 
their best ultimate interests, which is the misfortune rather than 
the fault of every mercantile community upon earth, seems to be to 
inculcate, as a part of education, those broad principles of free inter- 
change and reciprocal profit and public^ justice on which the whole? 
edifice of permanently successful enterprise must be based. 

" The exercise and development of our reasoning faculties is 
another grand object of education, and is usually considered, and 
in a certain sense justly, as most likely to be obtained by a judicious 
course of mathematical instruction, while it stands, if not opposed 
to, at least in no natural connexion with, the formal and conventional 
departments of knowledge (such as grammar and the so-called Aris- 
totelian logic). It must be recollected, however, that there are minds 
which, though not devoid of reasoning powers, yet manifest a decided 
inaptitude for mathematical studies — which are esti7native not calcu- 
lating, and which are more impressed by analogies and by apparent 
preponderance of general evidence in argument, than by mathe- 
matical demonstration, where all the argument is on one-side and 
no show of reason can be exhibited on the other. The mathema- 
tician listens only to one side of a question, for this plain reason 
— that no strictly mathematical question has more than one side 
capable of being maintained otherwise than by simple assertion ; 
while all the great questions that arise in busy life and agitate the 
world, are stoutly disputed, and often with a show of reason on 
both sides, which leaves the shrewdest at a loss for a decision. 

" This, or something like it, has often been urged by those who 
contend against what they consider an undue extension of mathe- 
matical studies in our universities. But those who have urged the 
objection Mve stopped short of the remedy. It is essential, how- 
ever, to fill this enormous blank in every course of education which 
has hitherto been acted on, by a due provision of some course of 
study and instruction which shall meet the difficulty by showing 
how valid propositions are to be drawn, not from premises which 
virtually contain them in their very words, as is the case with 
abstract propositions in mathematics, nor from the juxtaposition of 
other propositions assumed as true, as in the Aristotelian logic, but 
from the broad consideration of an assemblage of facts and cir- 
cumstances brought under review. This is the scope of the induc- 
tive philosophy, ajjplicable, and which ought to be applied (though 
it never yet has fairly been so), to all the complex circumstances of 
human life ; to politics, to morals and legislation \ to the guidance 



SIR JOHN HERSCHEL. 417 

of individual conduct, and that of nations. I cannot too strongly 
recommend this to the consideration of those who are now to 
decide on the normal course of instruction to be adopted in your 
College. Let them have the glory — for glory it will really be — to 
have given a new impulse to public instruction by placing the Novum 
Organum, for the first time, in the hands of young men educating 
for active life, as a text-book, and as a regular part of their College 
course. It is strong meat, I admit, but it is manly nutriment ; and 
though imperfectly comprehended (as it must be at that age when 
the College course terminates), the glimpses caught of its meaning, 
under a due course of collateral explanation, will fructify in after 
life, and, like the royal food with which the young bee is fed, will 
dilate the frame and transform the whole habit and economy. Of 
course, it should be made the highest book for the most advanced 
classes." 

{Extract front a Communication to the English Pnblic School 
Connnissioners,from Sir J. F. W. Herschel). 

Regarding as a "Public School" any considerable permanent 
educational establishment, in Avhich a large number of youths go 
through a fixed and uniform course of school instruction, from the 
earliest age at which boys are usually sent to school to that in 
which they either enter the University, or pass in some other mode 
into manly life, and in which it is understood that the education is 
what is called a liberal one, with no special professional bias or other 
avowed object than to form a youth for general life and civilized 
society, I should consider any system radically faulty which should 
confine itself to the study of the classical languages, and to so much 
of Greek and Roman history as is necessary to understand the 
classical authors as its main and primary feature ; and should 
admit, and that reluctantly, a mere minimttm of extra-classical 
teaching. Such a system must necessarily, I conceive, suffer the 
reasoning faculty to languish and become stunted and dwarfed for 
want of timely exercise in those years between fourteen and twenty, 
when the mind has become capable of consecutive thought, and of 
following out a train of consecutive argument to a logical conclu- 
sion. In those years it is quite as important that youths should 
have placed in their hands, and be obliged to study, books which 
may best initiate them in this domain of human thought, as in that 
of classical literature. To be able to express one's self fluently in 
Creek or Latin, prose or verse ; to have attained an extensive fami- 
liarity with ancient literature, and a perfect knowledge of the 
niceties of his grammar, prosody, and idiom, — all, in short, which 
is included in the idea of classical scholarship, — is, no doubt, very 
desirable ; and I should be one of the last to depreciate it. But it 
is bought too dear, if obtained at the sacrifice of any reasonable 
prospect of improving the general intellectual character by ac- 
quiring habits of concentrated thought, by familiarizing the mind 



41 8 APPENDIX. 

with the contemplation of abstract truth, and by accustoming it to 
the attitude of investigation, induction, and gencrahzation, while 
it is yet plastic and impressible." 

ON THE GENERAL INFLUENCE OF SCIENTIFIC 
CULTURE. 

By George E. Paget, M.D., F.R.C.P. 

(^Extract from an Address before the British Medical Association, 
delivered at Cambridge, 1864.) 

The general question, whether the study of natural science 
should become an established part of the education of the higher 
classes, is a subject of such interest as to need no apology for its 
introduction before any audience, and least of all before you. It is 
not only one of the great educational questions of the day, but 
a question, in the right solution of which no class is more interested 
than is our profession. 

I confess that, to me, it seems high time to consider whether 
natural science might not be useful as part of a liberal education, 
when an author of great distinction and undoubted learning — one 
whose writings have been rewarded with the applause of the 
educated world and with some of the highest dignities in the gift 
of the Crown — states as a " well-attested fact, that a man's body 
is lighter when he is awake than sleeping ; a fact " (he says) 
" which every nurse who has carried a child would be able to 
attest ; " and concludes from these well-attested facts, that " the 
human consciousness, as an inner centre, works as an opposing 
force to the attraction of the earth." I quote from a seventh 
edition, revised. 

To my mind, the necessity for more general instruction in natural 
science needs no further proof, when ladies and gentlemen appear 
in a court of law to vouch their belief in the supernatural powers 
of a crystal globe ; when those who are called highly educated 
throng the necromancer's consulting room to hear disembodied 
spirits rap on his table ; when they daily become the dupes of 
barefaced quackeries ; and, while avowing their belief in what is 
absurd or even impossible, plume themselves on their superiority 
to prejudice, regard themselves with complacency as walking in the 
spirit of the age — as being an conra-nt with its progress — and class 
with the persecutors of Galileo any who question the accuracy of 
their facts or the logic of their conclusions. 

Whatever may be thought of the enlightenment of the present 
age, there can be no doubt of the readiness and boldness with 
which it forms or avows its opinions. Far be it from me to ques- 
tion the birthright of an Englishman, to judge of all matters, 
whether he understands them or not. The right of private judg- 
ment is the most precious of civil rights ; but it 7nay occasionally 
niake fools of us, when exercised upon questions in which we are 



DR. GEORGE E. PAGET. ^lo 

uninstructed. Even freedom of thought is not an unmixed good. 
It stirs a community in all directions — not always in the direction 
of progress. In the unwise and presumptous it is often the parent 
of mischievous errors, that find ready acceptance among the 
ignorant and indolent, and cost for their removal much time and 
trouble of wiser men. It is easier to refute errors than to remove 
them. Ignorance must be instructed, self-sufficiency must become 
modest, before it can be convinced. 

I have sometimes fancied that the rapid succession of brilliant 
discoveries and inventions which has characterized the present age, 
and should have enlightened it, has actually enhanced its credulity 
for the pretensions of quackery and imposture ; that the unexpected 
and unimagined achievements of true science have so dazzled the 
minds of people, as to render them more accessible to other 
marvels, whether true or false, and more ready to yield unquestion- 
ing belief in whatever is new and wonderful : as, in times of old, 
the heroic deeds of a Hercules or King Arthur led their admiring 
countrymen to ascribe to them other achievements, not only unreal, 
but impossible. 

Or as, in the sixteenth century, when men's minds had been 
roused and agitated by the spiritual preaching of the Protestant 
Reformers, a readier credence was given, not to spiritual truths 
only, but also to spiritual and mystical errors. Then was the time 
when enthusiasts abounded, whose imagination called up before 
their eyes every object they desired to see ; then it was that astro- 
logy was the most Avidely spread and most generally studied as an 
useful science ; then it was that demons were classified, and that 
witches were burnt in thousands. Then, even self-reliant intellects 
that had thrown off the yoke of ancient beliefs, yielded a ready 
credence to almost anything which had a spiritual semblance. 
Melancthon was one of the chief defenders of astrology. Luther 
attributed diseases to the immediate agency of the devil, and was 
indignant with the physicians who referred them to natural causes. 
Paracelsus and Cardan, while shaking the popular faith in ancient 
physic, rested their own on cabalism and astrology. 

In the old city of Aberdeen sorcery had lain undiscovered, 
though the holy clerks of King's College had been there for a 
hundred years, ready at any time to have exorcised it with bell, 
book, and candle ; but in the fourth year after the founding of 
Marischal College and the spiritual teaching of its Protestant pro- 
fessors, twenty-four witches were burnt alive for dancing with the 
devil around the market cross. 

As the minds of men in those days, when awakened to new and 
deep spiritual convictions, were opened also to mystical errors ; — 
so in the present day, when startled with scientific wonders beyond 
their comprehension, do they gape at and swallow indiscriminately 
every new thing that is presented to them under the outward guise 
of science : — and this, while they are disposed rather to scepticism 
than credulity in matters of ancient belief. 



420 APPENDIX. 

Truth, it has often been said, is stranger than fiction. They that 
use the proverh have, commonly, in view only the events of history 
or of social life. But it is equally true, if we compare the estab- 
lished facts of science with the pretended facts of fraud or quackery. 
If you tell an uninstructed person that you can talk easily and 
fluently with a friend a thousand miles off, — can write to him at 
that distance in letter or in cypher, whichever he prefers, and that 
all the help you need is in some pieces of zinc and copper and some 
acid and a long piece of wire, and a thing somewhat like the face 
and hands of a clock ; and then tell him, that by merely resting 
your fingers on a table, you can make it turn round and stand on 
one leg, and then move of itself about the room : both things may 
seem to him very strange, very wonder-moving ; but surely the 
truth here must seem stranger than the fiction. To an uninstructed 
person table-turning must seem at least as credible as electric tele- 
graphy. Or, again, if you were to tell him that there are rays of 
light which give no light ; that, when separated from other rays, 
and admitted into a darkened room, they cannot be seen, they give 
no light, and the room remains dark as before, and yet that Pro- 
fessor Stokes has made them visible — has made these dark rays 
shine and give light in the room — merely by intercepting them with 
a solution of a salt of quinine contained in an ordinary glass ; and 
if, then, an advocate of homoeopathy were to expound to the same 
hearer his views of the action of medicines, — surely the dogmas 
of Hahnemann (unproved and unsound as we know them to be) 
may seem to the uninstructed person no more strange or incredible 
than what ^-ou had told him about the rays of light, though the 
latter be well-assured facts, that can be verified at any moment, 
and are in harmony with the whole body of optical science. 

It is plain that by no instinct, no common sense, no natural 
power, can any man discern between truth and untruth in these 
matters : to the uninstructed in sciences of observation the truth 
must seem stranger, less credible, than the fiction. It is to this 
v.ant of special scientific instruction that we must ascribe the 
popularity of error. For it must be admitted, that they who 
believe the fictions are not all, in a general sense, fools : there are 
among them prudent statesmen, astute lawyers, faithful ministers, 
discreet housewives, such as, in their several callings, we might be 
content to take as our guides. And yet, because of their want of 
scientific training, their want of that knowledge which would tell 
them what it takes to establish a real fact in science, they arc 
unable to distinguish truth from its counterfeit, or to gainsay the 
pretensions of quackery and imposture. 

How, then, can people be guided to a better judgment in these 
things ? Chiefly by being themselves in some measure instructed 
in some of the sciences of observation ; and then by being taught 
that, in such things as I have put in contrast, the one set of state- 
ments are, and the other are not, founded on careful, repeated, 
various inquiries by men of special training ; that tlic one set are, 



DR. GEORGE E. PAGET. 42 1 

and the other set are not, provable by every test to the satisfaction 
of all who will look on and who are too acute to be deceived ; and, 
finally, that the truths are, and the fictions are not, parts of a 
system or whole body of sciences. 

It is this — the value and weight of a body of science — that 
uneducated people cannot understand. They may perhaps form 
some judgment whether the reasons advanced for any new view be 
in themselves good or bad, but they cannot estimate the kind or 
amount of evidence necessary to establish its truth ; nor can they 
appreciate fhe objections to it. They know not the multitude of 
well-assured facts which make up the body of true science, and 
each of which must be a standing argument against the admission 
of any new view that is at variance with them. To persons versed 
in science, this objection, in its aggregate, is well nigh conclusive. 
We may, in short, safely assert, that whatever cannot bear the test 
of other scientific inquiry, whatever cannot be incorporated with 
other knowledge, is probably not true. 

These, unfortunately, are tests which they who are uninstructed 
in science cannot apply for themselves ;. and, as this class must 
always remain a large one, we may be sure that quackery and 
credulity, fraud and folly, will never cease while the world lasts. 
They are evils that can never be wholly removed. 

Yet, assuredly, they may be mitigated. If some portion of the 
natural sciences, and in particular those which treat of the laws of 
life, should become an established part of the higher general educa- 
tion — of the education, not of medical students only, but of every 
English gentleman, — we may expect that society will, in course of 
time, become more conversant with the kind of knowledge required 
for distinguishing between true science and its counterfeit. We 
may.reasonable look forward to this improvement, if the universities 
of Oxford and Cambridge go onwards in the course they have taken 
of late years, and do not rest until no one shall be called well edu- 
cated who has not been trained in the knowledge of some natural 
science. I say expressly some natural science : for he that has 
studied even one, and has learned with what temper it must be 
pursued, with what labour it has been set up, \yith what evidence 
every new doctrine in it must be supported, and how that evidence 
must be able to bear a jealous ci^oss-examination, — he, I say, that 
has learned this in any one natural science, will not lightly adopt . 
spurious imitations of facts in any other. 

And this wider diffusion of a knowledge of natural science — how 
much it would add to social and national happiness ! Very few 
men pass through life without repeated occasions for the exercise of 
scitntific knowledge in questions of their own or others' health, or 
property, or social relations ; and according as a man guides him- 
self, or submits to guidance, wisely or imwisely, so is the result for 
his life, his health, or a great portion of his happiness. 

But if we would see to what a height of importance the correct 
appreciation of science may rise, let us look at its bearings on 



4.22 APPENDIX. 

matters of vital interest to the whole nation. We have an inslancA 
in what Sidney Herbert accomplished for the health of the British 
army. Till 1857 the mortality in the infantry serving at home was 
nearly double that of the civil population of the corresponding ages. 
Now it is actually less than in civil life. It is less than halfoi what 
it was. This represents the saving of the lives of British soldiers 
in time of peace. The contrast''is even more striking in war, if we 
compare the mortality from sickness in the two wars in China — the 
one before, the other after, the introduction of the new regulation ; 
— and yet these were little more than well-known saiiitary rules, 
applied intelligently by an able and earnest minister. 

Then, if we turn from what has been done to what has not yet 
been done — to the report of the sanitary state of our army in India, 
to the facts which it discloses, and the sad reflections it suggests — 
we may see, in matters in which the highest political interests of 
the empire are concerned, how "much might have been effected by 
men of station if they had been instructed in sanitary science, or 
had guided themselves by the advice of others who were. 

But it is a general diffusion of such knowledge, or at least of 
respect for such knowledge, which is needed in a country like 
England ; where the government is so much under the immediate 
influence of popular opinion, that scarcely a step can be taken for 
which the general public is 'not prepared. An autocrat, or his 
minister, if he be alive to the advances of science, may apply them 
at once to the exigencies of the state. But with us, there can be 
little progress without a progress of the whole nation. 

After all, it is not to be maintained that the study of natural 
science has the peculiar merit of making men, in all respects, wiser 
than the study of any physical science, or of literature, might make 
them. I fear it must be admitted that the body medical, instructed 
though all of us have been in natural science, has furnished its 
share of victims to the quackeries of religious profession, of politics, 
and of speculative finance. But this only strengthens the argument 
for the necessity of general education in natural science, just as 
scientific men err, when they engage in matters that they have not 
studied ; so do the unscientific, when they essay to judge in scien- 
tific questions, without even knowledge enough to choose their 
guides. 

. And if some acquaintance with the natural sciences be so need- 
ful for men in general, what should be expected of ns, the medical 
profession, who practise daily an art which has its only sound basis 
in these very sciences. 

I am well aware of the difficulty of maintaining a high standard 
of scientific acquirements for all, without exception, that seek 'to 
enter our profession ; but surely this is what should be unceasingly 
aimed at. Without scientific knowledge, the practice of medicine 
becomes mere empiricism ; without scientific and general acquire- 
ments, our profession may strive in vain to uphold its social status 
and its influence- 



DR. GEORGE E. PAGET. 423 

Every ignorant man admitted into our profession has an injurious 
influence on the estimation in which the entire body is held. His 
demerits have a tendency to low^er us throughout the circle in which 
he is known. The want of confidence in him — the want of respect 
for him — beget distrust and disrespect for the profession in general. 

Contrast with this, the influence on our social status of such men 
as Mead, Freind, and Arbuthnot, Thomas Young, Abercrombie, 
and Brodie, and of the many others, whose acquirements or achieve- 
ments in literature or science have raised them to eminence in the 
eyes of the world. Have they not elevated in some degree the 
whole body medical ; nay, are there not some of our own associates, 
now living — are there not some here present — who have made us 
all their debtors by the lustre they have thus reflected on our com- 
mon calling ? 

And so, likewise, must our scientific character be the measure of 
our social influence j and especially of our power of maintaining 
truth against error in questions that are daily exciting the attention 
of society, and of which we ought to be the accepted exponents. 

When we consider that the sciences, with which we are, or ought 
to be, conversant, include subjects of which people in general are 
so ignorant, and in which nevertheless they take so lively and 
curious an interest, and which concern their well-being in almost 
all they do or suffer ; surely it is in our power, as it certainly comes 
within our duty, to exercise a wide influence for good ; surely it is 
our duty, and may be our privilege, to be in these matters the 
scientific " salt of the earth." 

Our profession has never been backward in such work. The 
learned and ingenious author of " Inquiries into Vulgar Errors " 
was a provincial physician. It was a physician also who, in the 
sixteenth century, strove single-handed with the arms of reason 
against the barbarous hosts of witch-burners, and bore the glorious 
reproach of folly and presumption for putting the judgment of an 
insignificant physician in opposition to the dicta and decrees of 
emperors and kings, legislators and judges, divines and philosophers 
of all ages and all countries. And something has been done in our 
time — and well done — for the direct refutation of error. The most 
fashionable of modern quackeries has been ably and thoroughly 
exposed by Dr. Simpson. 

Few have the ability for works of this kind ; but there are many 
of us, who might do something to prevent the spread of mis- 
chievous errors. We might do much, if we were to aid in such 
instruction as would be some safeguard against them. We know 
what was effected by the late Professor Henslow ; how in a few 
years he brought about a complete revolution, intellectual as Avell 
as moral, in a grossly ignorant village community ; how even such 
people as those were instructed in some knowledge of science, and 
filled with a rational and elevating respect for it. And really the 
means employed were little more than might be in the power of any 
medical practitioner who has his home in the country. It was not 



424 APPENDIX. 

• 

the dept>i of Professor Hcnslow's knowledge, but. the simplicity 
with which he imparted it, that gave to it so powerful an influence. 
Our country members are quite capable of giving short, easy 
lectures, as Professor Henslow did, and many of them are capable 
of doing it well. I am not unaware of the objections that may be 
urged against medical men lecturing, and of the fatally easy tran- 
sition from lectures for the benefit of others, to lectures for the benefit 
of one's self; but I think such objections are not applicable to the 
case of a man instructing the poor of his own village, where he is 
officially charged with the care of them in sickness — in fact, though 
not in name, the true guardian of the poor, — and where some little 
instruction in such simple matters as the air they breathe, and the 
food they eat, may save his poor neighbours from suffering, or even 
death, and himself from some portion of his ill-requited labours. 

I am disposed even to think, that our patients of the upper classes 
would have more confidence in orthodox medicine, if we were to 
vouchsafe more frequently to gratify their natural curiosity as to 
the nature of their diseases and the processes of cure. I am well 
aware of the opinion of shrewd " practical men," that no doctors 
acquire a reputation for skill, like 'those that hold their tongues; 
and, doubtless, silence is the most prudent for those, that aim to be 
counted wise, though they be not so ; but I think, nevertheless, that 
an explanation of the case is as much due from the physician to his 
patient, as it is from the lawyer to his client ; and that the con- 
fidence of the public in rational medicine would be strengthened 
by such explanations. I do not mean that the doctor should put 
on an air of profundity, and look, like Lord Thurlow, more wise 
than it is possible for any man to be ; nor that he should impress 
on his patient that 

" These are diseases he must know the whole on. 
For he talks of the peritoneum and the colon ; " 

but I mean that he should be willing to give a plain explanation in 
words as free as may be from technicalities. 

We do injustice to medicine, if we treat it as a mystery. It is a 
science, and entitled to rank as such ; and we at least should be 
ready to show that its maxims are founded in truth and reason. 

Let us hope that the educational changes now in progress will 
aid us in maintaining the dignity which is its due ; — that, when 
people are better instructed as to the sciences on which medicine 
rests, when they thcnisclvcs have examined into some parts of its 
broad and firm foundations, they will have a juster appreciation of 
medicine itself. Let us hope, that medicine will then receive the 
respect that is due to it, as the only one of the learned professions 
which holds its doctrines open to all inquiries, and never con- 
descends to uphold itself on any dogma either of authority or 
tradition. Let us hope — as we have a right to hope — that medicine 
will then be honoured as the profession in which all discoveries and 
inventions are offered freely for the benefit of mankind, and in 



MR. HERBERT SPENCER. 425 

which their concealment for selfish purposes, or their appropriation 
by patent right, is held to be disgraceful. 

And till then, if the world deny to our profession the full honour 
which we feel and know is due to it, we may be well content with 
the ordinary round of duties, which are at once our lot and our 
privilege : we may be content with the internal satisfaction that 
our time is spent to the best of our ability in doing good to our 
fellow-men ; that we do not rest supinely satisfied with what is im- 
perfect in our science, but are ever earnestly and laboriously seek- 
ing for fresh light ; and when God vouchsafes it to our inquiries, 
we use it gladly in such works as He would have us do — in the 
relief of human sufferings, in healing the sick, in striving to make 
the lame walk and the blind see — in earnest endeavours to follow 
our Divine Exemplar, though it be with the limited powers and 
faltering steps of human infirmity. 

ON THE ORDER OF DISCOVERY IN THE PROGRESS 

OF KNOWLEDGE. 

By Herbert Spencer. 

{JFrom '■^ First Pr'inciplcs^^ p. 128.) 

The growing belief in the universality of Law is so conspicuous 
to all cultivated m.inds, as scarcely to need illustration. None 
who read these pages will ask for proof that this has been the 
central element of intellectual progress. But though the fact is 
sufficiently famiHar, the philosophy of the fact is not so, and it will 
be desirable now to consider it. Partly because the development 
of our conception of Law will so be rendered more comprehensible ; 
but chiefly because our subsequent course will thus be facilitated, 
I propose here to enumerate the several conditions that determine 
the order in which the various relations among phenomena are 
discovered. Seeing, as we shall, the consequent necessity of this 
order, and enabled, as we shall also be, to estimate the future by 
inference from the past, we shall perceive how inevitable is an 
advance towards the ultimatum that has been indicated. 

The -recognition of Law being the recognition of uniformity of 
relations among " phenomena, it follows that the order in which 
different groups of phenomena are reduced to law, must depend on 
the frequency and distinctions with which the uniform relations 
they severally present are experienced. At any given stage of pro- 
gress, those uniformities will be most recognised with which men's 
minds are oftener and most thoroughly impressed. In proportion 
partly to the number of times a relation has been presented to con- 
sciousness (not merely to the senses) ; and in proportion partly 
to the vividness with which the terms of the relation have been 
cognised, will be the degree in which the constancy of connexion 
is perceived. 

The frequency and impressivcncss with which different classes 
of relations are repeated in conscious experience, thus primariiy 



426 APPENDIX. 

determining the succession in which they are generalized, there 
result certain derivative principles to which this succession must 
more immediately and obviously conform. First in importance 
comes the directness with which perso7ial welfare is affected. 
While, among surrounding things, many do not appreciably in- 
fluence the body in any way, some act detrimentally, and soire 
beneficially, in various degrees ; and manifestly, those things whose 
actions on the organism are most influential, will, cccteris paribus, 
be those whose laws of action are earliest observed. Second in 
order is, the consciousness of one or both the fheiiomcna between 
which a relation is to be perceived. On every side are countless 
phenomena so concealed as to be detected only by close observa- 
tion ; others not obtrusive enough to attract notice ; others which 
moderately solicit the attention ; others so imposing or vivid as to 
force themselves upon consciousness : and, supposing incidental 
conditions to be the same, these last will, of course, be among the 
first to have their relations generalized. In the third place, we have 
the absolute frequency with which the relations occur. There are 
co-existences, and sequences of all degrees of commonness, from 
those which are ever present, to those which are extremely rare ; 
and it is clear that the rare co-existences and sequences, as well 
as the sequences which are very long in taking place, will not 
be reduced to law so soon as those which are familiar and rapid 
Fourthly, has to be added, the relative frcqtiency of occurrence. 
Many events and appearances are more or less limited to times and 
places ; and as a relation which does not exist within the environ- 
ment of an observer, cannot be cognised by him, however common 
it may be elsewhere ; or in another age, we have to take account 
of the surrounding physical circumstances, as well as the state of 
society, of the arts, and of the sciences ; all of which affect the 
frequency with which certain groups of facts are exposed to obser- 
tion. The fifth corollary to be noticed is, that the succession in 
which different classes of phenomena are reduced to law, depends 
in part on their simplicity. Phenomena presenting great com- 
plexity of causes or conditions, have their essential relations 
so masked, that it requires accumulated experience to impress 
upon consciousness the true connexion of antecedents and conse- 
quents they involve. Hence, other things equal, the progress of 
generalization will be from the simple to the complex ; and this it 
is which M. Comte has wrongly asserted to be the sole regulative 
principle of the progress. Sixth, and last, comes the degree of 
abstractness. Concrete relations are the earliest acquisitions. The 
colligation of any group of these into a general relation, which is 
the first step in abstraction, necessarily comes later than the dis- 
covery of the relations colligated. The union of a number of these 
lowest generalizations into a higher and more abstract generali- 
zation, is necessarily subsequent to the formation of such lowest 
generalizations. And so on continually, until the highest and 
.^lost abstract generalizations have been reached. 



DR. J. W. DRAPER. 427 



DEFICIENCIES OF CLERICAL EDUCATION. 

By John W. Draper, M.D., LL.D., of the Universitv of 
New York. 

{From " Thoughts on the Future Civil Policy of Amcrica^^ p. 273.) 

There are three organs of public instruction — the School, the 
Pulpit, the Press* 

As respects schools, the primary condition for their efficiency is 
a supply of well-trained and competent teachers. In former times 
the education of youth was too often surrendered to persons who 
had become superannuated in other pursuits, or had failed in them, 
or had been left in destitute circumstances. But little heed was 
given by parents or the public to the quality of the information im- 
parted in these concerns. There was a vague notion, which, as wc 
shall see, still unhappily prevails as regards the higher establish- 
ments of education, that the training of the mind is of more 
importance than the nature of the information imparted to it. 

Normal schools for the preparation of teachers must necessarily 
be an essential part of any well-ordered public-school system. In 
these, young persons of both sexes may be prepared for assuming 
the duties of teaching. The rule under which they should not only 
be taught, but likewise subsequently teach — the rule that should be 
made to apply in every establishment, from the primary school to 
the university, is this — Education should represent the existhig state 
of knowledge. 

But in America this golden rule is disregarded, especially in the 
case of the higher establishments. What is termed classical learn- 
ing arrogates toitself a space that excludes much more important 
things. It finds means to appropriate, practically, all collegiate 
honours. This evil has arisen from the circumstance that our 
system was imported from England. It is a remnant of the tone 
of thought of that country in the sixteenth century; meritorious 
enough and justifiable enough in that day, but obsolete in this. 
The vague impression to which I have above referred, that such 
pursuits impart a training to the mind, has long sustained this in- 
appropriate course. It also finds an excuse in its alleged power of 
communicating the wisdom of past ages. The grand 'depositories 
of human knowledge are not the ancient, but the modern tongues. 
Few, if any, are the facts worth knowing that are to be exclusively 
obtained by a knowledge of Latin and Greek ; and as, to mental 
discipline, it might reasonably be inquired how much a youth will 
secure by translating daily a few good sentences of Latin and 
Greek into bad and broken English. So far as a preparation is 
required for the subsequent struggles and conflicts of life — for dis- 



428 APPENDIX. 

ccrning the intentions and meeting the rivalries of competitars — for 
skill to design movements and carry them out with success — for 
cultivating a clearness of perception into the character and motives 
of others, and for imparting a decision to our own actions — so far 
as these things are concerhed, an ingenious man would have no 
difficulty in maintaining the amusing affirmation that more might 
be gained from a mastery of the gante of chess than by translating 
all the Greek and Latin authors in the world. 

The remarks I am thus making respecting the imperfections of 
general education apply, I think, very forcibly to the education of 
the clergy. The School, the Pulpit, the Press, being the three organs 
of public instruction, a right preparation of the clergy for their duty 
is of as much moment as a right preparation of teachers and 
journalists. 

In the education of the American clergyman the classical element 
very largely predominates. Indeed, it may with truth be affirmed 
that it is to no inconsiderable degree for the sake of securing such 
a result that that element is so carefully fostered in the colleges, 
from which it would otherwise have long ago been eliminated, or, 
at all events, greatly reduced in prominence. The strength of this 
wish is manifested by the munificent endowments with which many 
pious and patriotic men have sustained classical professorships. 
Perhaps, however, they do not sufficiently reflect that the position 
and requirements of the clergy have of late years very much 
changed. Preaching must answer to the mode of thinking of the 
congregations. But now literary authority has to a very great 
degree lost its force. Elucidations of Scripture and the defence of 
doctrine, in modern times, require modern modes of treatment. 

But, moreover, in one important respect is the education of the 
\i clergy defective. Unhappily, and, it may be added, unnecessarily, 
there has arisen an apparent antagonism between Theology and 
Science. Tradition has been made to confront discovery. Now, 
the discussion and correct appreciation of any new scientific fact 
requires a special training, a special stock of knowledge. That 
training, that knowledge, aje not to be had in theological semi- 
naries. The clergyman is thus constrained to view with jealous 
distrust the rapid advancement of practical knowledge. In the 
case of any new fact, his inquiry necessarily is, not whether it 
is absolutely true, but whether it is in accordance with con- 
ceptions he considers established. The result of this condition 
of things is, that many of the most important, the most powerful 
and exact branches of human knowledge, have been forced into 
a position they never would have voluntarily assumed, and have 
been compelled to put themselves on their defence — Astronomy, 
in the case of the globular form of the earth, and its position 
as a subordinate planet ; Geology, as respects its vast antiquity ; 
Zoology, on the problem of the origin of species ; Chemistry, 
on the unchangeabihty of niatter and the indestructibility of 
force. 



DR. J. W. DRAPER. 429 

In thus criticising education in the higher American establish- 
ments, I present views that have forced themselves on my attention 
In an experience of thirty years, and on a very extensive scale. 
Not unfrequently I have superintended the instruction, professional 
or otherwise, of nearly four hundred young men in the course of a 
single year, and have had unusual opportunities of observing their 
subsequent course of life. 

The education of the clergy, I think, is not equal to that of 
physicians or lawyers. The provisions are sufficient, and the time 
is sufficient, but the direction is faulty. In the study of medicine 
everything- /is done to impart to the pupil a knowledge of the 
present state" of the subjects or sciences with which he is concerned. 
The 'profession watches with a jealous eye its colleges, exposing 
without hesitation any shortcomings il*. 'detects. It will not be 
satisfied with erudition, it insists on knowledge. 

But such modernised instruction is actually less necessary in the 
life of a physician than it is in the life of"a clergyman. The former 
pursues his daily course in an unobtrusive way ; the latter is com- 
pelled by his position to publicity. The congregations whom he 
must meet each Sabbath day, and, indeed, perhaps more frequently, 
are often too prone to substitute the right of criticism for a senti- 
ment of simple devotion. Very few among them can appreciate 
the monotonous, the wearing strain of compulsory mental labour — 
labour that at a given hour must with punctuality be performed. 
On topics that have been thought about, and written about, and 
preached about for nearly twenty centuries, they are importunately 
and unreasonably demanding something new. 

In that ordeal the clergyman spends his existence. To maintain 
the respect that is his due, there are but two things on which he 
can rely — purity of life and knowledge. Men unconsciously submit 
to the guidance of what they discern to be superior intelligence. 
Here comes into disastrous operation the defective organization 
of the theological seminaries. Content with such a knowledge of 
nature as might have answered a century ago, the imposing and 
ever-increasing body of modern science they decline. And yet it 
is that science and its practical applications which are now guiding 
the destinies of civilization. 

In my " History of the Intellectual Development of Europe-" I have 
had occasion to consider the consequences ofjthe Reformation, and 
may perhaps be excused the following quotation : "America, in 
which, of all countries, the Reformation at the present^'moment has 
farthest advanced, should offer to thoughtful men much encourage- 
ment. Its cities are filled with churches, built "by voluntary gifts ; 
its clergy are voluntarily sustained, and are in all directions engaged 
in enterprises of piety, education, mercy. What a difference be- 
tween their private life and that of 'ecclesiastics before the" Refor- 
mation ! Not, as in the old times, does the layman look upon them 
as the cormorants and curse of 'society. They are his 'faithful 
advisers, his honoured friends, under whose suggestion and super- 



430 APPENDIX. 

vision are instituted educational establishments, colleges, hospitals, 
whatever can be of benefit to men in this life, or secure for them 
happiness in the life to come." 

.No one can study the progress of modern civilization without 
bein^ continually reminded of the great, it might be said, the 
mortal mistake committed by the Roman Church. Had it put 
itself, forth as the promoter and protector of science, it would at 
this day have exerted an unquestioned dominion all over Europe. 
Instead of being the stumbling-block, it would have been the 
animating agent of human advancement. It shut the Bible only 
to have it opened forcibly by the Reformation ; it shut the book of 
Nature, but has found it impossible to keep.it closed. How different 
the result, had it abandoned the obsolete absurdities of patristicism, 
and become imbued with the spirit of true philosophy — had it lifted 
itself to a comprehension of the awful magnificence of the "heavens 
above and the glories of the earth beneath — had it appreciated the 
immeasurable vastness of the universe, its infinite multitude of 
worlds, its inconceivable past duration ! How different, if in place 
of for ever looking backward, it had only looked forward — bowing 
itself down in a world of life and light, instead of worshipping, in 
the charnel-house of antiquity, the skeletons of twenty centuries ! 
How different, had it hailed with transport the discoveries and in- 
ventions of human genius, instead of scowling upon them with a 
malignant and baleful eye ! How different, had it canonized the 
great men who have been the interpreters of Nature, instead of 
anathematizing them as Atheists ! 

In our national development it is for the American clergy to shun 
that great, that fatal mistake. It is for them to remember that the 
Reformation remains only half completed, until to the free reading 
of the Book of God there is added the free reading of the Book 
of Nature. It is for them to remember that there are two volumes 
of Revelation — the Word and the Works ; and that it is the inde- 
feasible right of every man to study and interpret them both, 
according to the light given him, without molestation or punish- 
ment. 

Since the invention of printing, the power of the pulpit has been 
subordinated to the power of the press, which is continually gather- 
ing force from the increasing diffusion of education. In America 
the newspaper has become a necessary of life. It makes its suc- 
cessful appearance in villages of which the population would be 
considered, in other countries, inadequate for its support. Cheap 
reading is to be had everywhere. The consequence is, that all 
sides of a question are apt to be read. It is affirmed that the con- 
sumption of paper in America, for printing and writing, is more 
than that of England and France put together. 



DR. EDWARD SEGUIN. 431 



THE PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS OF PRIMARY EDUCATION. 

By Edward Seguin, M.D. 

{From his recent work, '■'■Idiocy, and its Treatment by the 
Physiological Method^ published by William Wood and Co. 
New York.) 

Thus education connects a small body with all bodies, a small 
intellect with the general laws of the universe, through specific 
instruments of perception. 

This being the law of perception of phenomena, it does not 
matter through which sense we perceive; the same operation being 
entirely from the mind, is always identical with itself; this law is 
nothing less than the principle of our "physiological method of 
education. 

Thence the law of evolution of the function of the senses ending 
in intellectual faculty, rules from the youngest child to the most 
encyclopaedic nervous apparatus. A corollary law to this, is the 
mode of perception and idealization of the impressions according to 
certain conditions, conformable -to the teachings of anatomy and 
physiology. One thing at a time, is the law of sensorial perception 
for inferior animals. As many things at a time as necessary to form 
a complete idea, is the law for the intellectual comprehension of 
man. In animals some senses are more perfect than in man, hence 
their sensations are more perfect than ours ; nevertheless, theirs 
being received in singleness and registered without associations, 
cannot become ideas, because their notions acquired alone, live or 
die alone, incapable of fecundation ; the lower animals are as far 
down as that. 

But we cannot study the progress of sensorial and intellectual 
evolution without finding already animals inferior to mammalia 
which register their sensations and feelings in comparison with 
each other, and with a meaning attached to them. These animals 
must receive compared and comparable impressions, to be capable 
of combining them presently or hereafter, to form new judgments 
and determinations. The ant, the bee, the spider, the blue-fly and 
many more, give evidence of their power of idealizing notions, and 
of the rationality of their determinations. But for the immense 
majority of animals, the rule seems to be one perception at a time, 
whose isolated notion is incapable of entering into collections of 
images, parents to ideas. Though every observation points to the 
probable issue of this difference between man and brutes, as being 
only a gradation, whose lowest strata begins lower than the corals, 
winch know in what direction to build and propagate, and ends 
wiiere man docs not yet dare to aspire. However, few minds are 



432 APPENDIX. 

prepared for this affirmation, unless it could be supported by the 
following observation : — 

In the nervous apparatus of animals, the sensory ganglia are 
larger than the hemispheres in proportion to the development of 
their respective functions ; sensorial perceptions being in them more 
extensive than the ideal products of ^comparison. On the contrary, 
in our human nervous system, the intellectual ganglia are larger 
than the sensorial ones in proportion to the predominance of the 
reflective and willed above the perceptive faculties. 

The following remarks constitute the psychological corollary to 
this observation. 

The motor of life in animals is mostly centripetal ; the motor of 
life in man is mostly centrifugal. But how many uneducated, or 
viciously educated men display none but the ferocious centripetal 
power of the beast : while a dog shall affront death to defend his 
master, that master may work the ruin of twenty families to satisfy 
a single brute appetite ; nevertheless, the motor in the beast is 
called instinct, in man soul. Well, we will say yes ; instinct, when 
a wild, uneducated, or uneducable stock ; soul, when engrafted by 
education and revelation. As a generality, however, animals have 
only a centripetal or individual life ; men, educated and partici- 
pating in the incessant revelation, have a social and centrifugal 
existence also, being, feeling, thinking, in mankind, as mankind is, 
feels, and progresses in God. What can be done to a certain 
extent for brutes, may be done for idiots and their congeners ; their 
life may be rendered more centrifugal, that is to say more social, by 
education. 

True, this view of our subject and of our race would not deprive 
animals of some kind of soul. But our mind must have already 
laecome familiar with that sort of concessions ; since women, Jews, 
peasants, Sudras, Farias, Indians, negi-oes, imbeciles, insane, idiots, 
are not now denied a soul, as they were once by religious or civil 
ordinances. Nations have perished by the over-educating of a 
few ; mankind can be improved only by the elevation of the lowest 
through education and comfort, which substitute harmony to anta- 
gonism, and make all beings feel the unity of what circulates in all, 
life. 

Contrarily to the teachings of various mythologies of the brain, 
and with the disadvantage of working against the prevalent 
anthropological formula, we were obliged at the same time to use 
most of its terms ; we have developed our child, not like a duality, 
nor like a trinity, nor like an illimited poly-entity, but, as nearly as 
we could, like a unit. It is true that the unity of the physiological 
training could not be gone through without concessions to the lan- 
guage of the day, nor to necessities of analysis, quite repugnant to 
the principle ; it is true that we have been speaking of muscular, 
nervous, or sensorial functions, as of things as distinct for us as 
muscles, nerves, and bones are for the anatomist ; but after a long 
strug^^le with these difficulties, psycho-physiology vindicated its 



DR. EDWARD SEGUIN. 433 

rights against the feebleness of our understanding, and the mincing 
of our vocabularies. 

We looked at the rather immovable, or ungovernable mass called 
an idiot with the faith that where the appearance displayed nothing 
but ill-organized matter, there was nothing but ill-circumstanced 
animus. In answer to that conviction, v/hen we educated the 
muscles, contractility responded to our bidding with a spark from 
volition ; we exercised severally the senses, but an impression could 
not be made on their would-be material nature, without the impres- 
sion taking its rank among the accumulated idealities ; we were en- 
larging the chest, and new voices came out from it, expressing new 
ideas and feelings ; we strengthened the hand, and it became the 
realizer of ideal creations and labour ; we started imitation as a 
passive exercise, and it soon gave rise to all sorts of spontaneous 
actions ; we caused pain and pleasure to be felt through the skin or 
the palate, and the idiot, in answer, tried to please by the exhibition 
of his new moral qualities : in fact, we could not touch a fibre of 
his, without receiving back the vibration of his all-souled instru- 
ment. 

In opposition to this testimony of the unity of our nature given 
by idiots, since they receive a physiological education, might be 
arrayed the testimony of millions of children artificially developed 
by dualistic or other antagonistic systems ; as millions of ox and 
horse teams testified to the powerlessness of steam. The fact that 
dualism is not in our nature but in our sufferings, is self-evident. 
Average men who oppose everything, were compressed from birth 
in some kind of swaddling bands ; those who abhor study were 
forced to it as to punishment ; those who gormandize were 
starved ; those who lie were brought to it by fear ; those who hate 
labour have been reduced to work for others ; those who covet 
were deprived : everywhere oppression creates the exogenous 
element of dualism. Of the two terms of "the house divided 
against itself," one is the right owner, the other is evidently the in- 
truder. We have done away with the last in educating idiots, not 
by repression, which would have created it, but by ignoring it. 

One of the earliest and most fatal antagonisms taught to a child 
is the forbidding of using his hands to ascertain the qualities of 
surrounding objects, of which his sight gives him but an imperfect 
notion, if it be not aided by the touch ; and of breaking many 
things as well, to acquire the proper idea of solidity. The imbe- 
cility of parents in these matters has too often favoured the growth 
of the evil spirit. The youngest child, when he begins to totter on 
his arched legs, goes about touching, handling, breaking every- 
thing. It is our duty to foster and direct that beautiful curiosity, 
to make it the regular channel for the acquisition of correct per- 
ceptions and tactile accuracy ; as for breaking, it must be turned 
into the desire of preservation atA the power of holding with the 
will ; nothing is so simple, as the ^"ollowing example will demon- 
strate : — 

20 



434 APPENDIX. 

Once a very excitable child, eighteen months old, touching, 
breaking, throwing eveiything he could, seemed really ready, if he 
had been once punished for it, to become possessed by the old in- 
truder ; but it was not our plan. We bought unmatched Sevres 
cups and Bohemia glasses, really splendid to look at, and served 
the child in one of them, after showing him the elegance of the 
pattern, the richness of the colours, everything which could please 
and attach him to the object. But he had no sooner drunk than he 
threw the glass away. Not a word was said, not a piece removed 
from where it fell ; but the next time he was thirsty, we brought 
him where the fragments lay, and let him feel more thirst before we 
could find another glass equally beautiful. Some more were broken 
in the same petulant spirit ; but later, he slowly dropped one, 
when, at the same time, he looked into our eyes to catch signs of 
anger. But there were none there, nor in the voice ; only the 
composure and accent of pity for the child who could willingly 
incur such a loss. Since then, baby took good care of his cups and 
glasses, finer than ours ; he taught his little fingers how to embrace 
with security the thin neck of one, the large body, or the diminu- 
tive handle of others. In practising these so varied handlings, his 
mind became saving and his hands a model of accuracy. 



ON MODERN COLLEGIATE STUDIES. 

{Extract fr 07)1 an Address delivered at Union Cellege, Schenectady, 
N. v., by Francis Wayland, D.D.) 

If you will allow me to commence with an elementary thought, I 
would remark, that every act of the mind ends in a knowledge, 
sometimes only subjective, but generally both subjective and objec- 
tive. Thus I am conscious of a simple emotion ; here is a mental 
act, a mere subjective knowledge. I perceive a tree ; here is a 
subjective consciousness and an objective knowledge. And, on the 
other hand, every \ii\Qi\v\&di°(i presupposes an act of mind ; for were 
there no mind, or were the mind incapable of action, knowledge 
would be impossible. 

From this simple and obvious fact, it has naturally come to pass 
that men have looked upon the subject of education in two distinct 
points of view, as they have contemplated either the act of mind, 
or the knowledge in which it results. Hence, some have considered 
education to consist merely in the communication of knowledge ; 
others almost entirely in the discipline of mind. If the first be our 
object, it will be successfully accomplished precisely in proportion 
to the amount and the value of the knowledge which we commu- 
nicate. If, on the other hand, we desire simply to cultivate the 
intellect, our success must be measured by the number of faculties 
which we improve, and the degree of culture whicli wc have im- 
parted to them. 



DR. WAYLAND. 435 

It is, I presume, for this reason, that a division has, to a con- 
siderable degree, been estabhshed between the studies Avhich enter 
into our course of higher education. Some of them, of which the 
results are acknowledged to be in general valueless, are prosecuted 
on account of the mental discipline which they are supposed to 
impart. That they tend to nothing practical, has sometimes been 
deemed their appropriate excellence. Hence, some learned men 
have exulted rather facetiously in the " glorious inutility " of the 
studies which they recommend. On the other hand, there are 
many studies which communicate knowledge, admitted by all 
men to be indispensable, which are supposed to convey no mental 
discipline, or, at least, only that which is of the most elementary 
character. Hence, you at once perceive that a wide ground for 
debate is afforded, which writers on education have not been back- 
ward to occupy. Hence, also, the various discussions on the best 
methods of education, which seem to me to approach with but 
slow and unequal steps to any definite conclusion. The studies 
which are most relied on for mental discipline, for instance, are 
the classics and the mathematics. While the advocates for these 
discard, almost contemptuously, all other methods of culture, they 
are by no means agreed among themselves. The mathema-ticians 
look with small favour upon the lovers of lexicons, and paradigms, 
and accents ; and claim that nothing but exact science can in- 
vigorate the power of ratiocination, on which all certainty of know- 
ledge depends. The philologists, on the other hand, inveigh in no 
measured terms against the narrow range of mathematical culture, 
and boldly affirm that it unfits men for all reasoning concerning 
matter actually existing, while it withers up every delicate senti- 
ment and turns into an arid waste the entire field of our emotional 
nature. Here issue is joined, and I am compelled in truth to add, 
adhtic sub judice lis est. 

But is it not possible to escape from the smoke and din of this 
controversy, and look upon this question from a somewhat higher 
point of view ? It may, I think, be safely taken for granted, that 
the system of which we form a part, is the work of a Being of in- 
finite wisdom and infinite benevolence. He made the world with- 
out us and the world within us, and He manifestly* made each of 
them for the other. He has made knowledge, intellectual culture, 
and progress, all equally necessary to our individual and social 
well-being. He abhors all castes, and desires that every one of his 
children shall enjoy to the full all the means of happiness which 
liave been committed to his trust. Is it then to be supposed that 
He has made for our brief probation two kinds of knowledge ; one 
necessary for the attainment of our means of happiness, but in- 
capable of nourishing and strengthening the soul ; and the other, 
tending to self-culture, but leading to no single practical advantage? 
Shall we believe that the God and Father of all has made the many 
to labour by blind rules for the good of the few, without the possi- 
bility of spiritual elevation ; and the few to learn nothing that shall 



43^ APPENDIX. 

promote the happiness of the whole, living on the labours of others, 
selfishly building themselves up in intellectual superiority? Is it 
not rather to be believed, that He has made each of these ends to 
harmonize with 'the other, so that all intellectual culture shall issue 
in knowledge which shall confer benefits on the whole ; and all 
knowledge properly acquired, shall in an equal degree tend to intel- 
lectual development ? 

These expectations seem to me to be reasonable. If so, we 
might surely anticipate that all knowledge acquired according to the 
established laws of mind, would be productive of self-culture. Nay, 
we might suppose that that which God had made most necessary 
to our existence, would be, in the highest degree, self-disciplinarj'. 
Thus every one, whatever his position, may well be supposed to 
possess the means of developing his own powers, and arriving at 
the standing of an intellectual man. There is nothing in the nature 
of any occupation that renders such an expectation extravagant. 
The uncles of Hugh Miller were highly cultivated men, reading the 
best books, concerning one of whom he remarks, " there are pro- 
fessors of natural history who know less of living nature than was 
known by uncle Sandy;" and yet one of them was a harness- 
maker, and the other a stone-mason ; each labouring industriously 
at his calling, for daily bread, for six days in the week. 

But if we take no account of the acquisition of knowledge and con- 
fine ourselves simply to intellectual culture, I apprehend that we shall 
arrive at substantially the same result. Suppose that our sole object 
is to develop the powers of the human mind. We must then first 
ask what are these powers. It will be sufficient for our present 
purpose to consider the following, as they are allowed to be the 
most important : Perception, by which we arrive at a knowledge of 
the phenomena of the world without us ; Consciousness, by which 
we loccome aware of the changes in the world within us ; Ab- 
straction and Generalization, by which our knowledge of individuals 
becomes the knowledge of classes ; Reasoning, by which we use 
the known to discover the unknown ; Imagination, by which we 
construct pictures in poetry and ideals in philosophy ; and Memoiy, 
by which all these various forms of past knowledge are recalled 
and made available for the present. 

Now, if such be the powers conferred on us by our Creator, it 
must, I think, be admitted that each of them is designed for a par- 
ticular purpose, and that a human mind would be fatally deficient 
were any one of them wanting. In our cultivation of mind, then, 
we must have respect not to one or two of them, but to all ; since 
that is the most perfect mind in which all of them are the most 
fully developed. 

If, then, we desire to improve the intellect of man by study, it is 
obvious that that study will be the best adapted to our purpose 
which cultivates not one, but all, of these faculties, and cultivates 
them all most thoroughly. We cultivate our powers of every kind 
by exercise, and that "study will most effectually aid us in the work 



DR. WAYLAND. 437 

of self-development, which requires the original exercise of the 
greatest number of them. 

Supposing this to be admitted, which I think will not be denied, 
the question will arise what studies are best adapted to our purpose. 
This is a question Avhich cannot be settled by authority. We are just 
as capable of deciding it as the men who have gone before us. They 
were once, like ourselves, men of the present, and their wisdom has 
not certainly received any addition from the slumber of centuries. 
They may have been able to judge correctly for the time that then 
•was, but could they revisit us now, they might certainly be no 
better able than ourselves to judge correctly for the time that noiu 
is. If any of us should be heard of 200 years hence, it would 
surely be strange folly for the men of A.D. 2054 to receive our say- 
ings as oracles concerning the conditions of society which will be 
then existing. God gives to every age the means for perceiving 
its own wants and discovering the best manner of supplying them ; 
and it is, therefore, certainly best that every age should decide 
such questions for itself. We cannot, certainly, decide them by 
authority. 

There are two methods by which we can determine the truth in 
this matter. First, we may examine any particular study and ob- 
serve the faculties of mind which it does and which it does not call 
into action. Every reasonable man, at all acquainted with the 
nature of his own mind, will be able to do this. Take, for instance, 
the studies which are pursued for the sake merely of discipline. 
Do they call into exercise one or many of our faculties ? Suppose 
they cultivate the reasoning power, and the power of poetic com- 
bination ; do they do anything else ? If not, what have we by 
which to improve the powers of observation, of consciousness, of 
generalization, and combination, these most important and most 
valuable of our faculties? If, then, their range be so limited, it 
may be deserving of inquiry whether some studies which can im- 
prove a larger number of our faculties might not sometimes take 
their places ; and yet more, whether they should occupy so large a 
portion of the time devoted to education. 

But we may examine the subject by another test. We may ask 
what are the results actually produced by devotion to those studies 
which are allowed to be merely disciplinary. We teach the mathe- 
matics to cultivate the reasoning power, and the languages to im- 
prove the imagination and the taste. We then may very properly 
inquire, are mathematicians better reasoners than other men, in 
matters not mathematical ? As a student advances in the mathe- 
matics, do we find his powers of ratiocination, in anything but the 
relations of quantity, to be visibly improved ? Are philologists or 
classical students more likely to become poets, or artists, than other 
men ; or, does their style by this mode of discipline approach 
more nearly to the classical models of their own, or of any other 
language ? 

It is by such considerations as these that this question is to be 



438 



APPENDIX. 



answered. We have long since abjured all belief in magical in- 
fluences. If we cannot discover any law of nature by which a 
cause produces its effect, and are unable to perceive that the effect 
is produced, we begin to doubt whether any causation exists in the 
matter. 

If there be any truth in the foregoing remarks, they would seem 
to lead us to the following conclusions : — 

First, that every branch of study should be so taught as to 
accomplish both the results of which we have been speaking ; that 
is, that it should not only increase our knowledge, but also confer 
valuable discipline ; and that it should not only confer valuable 
discipline, but also increase our knowledge ; and that, if it docs 
not accomplish both of -these results, there is either some defect in 
our mode of teaching, or the study is imperfectly adapted to the 
purposes of education. 

Secondly, that there seems no good reason for claiming pre- 
eminence for one study over another, at least in the^manner to 
which we have been accustomed. The studies merely disciplinary 
have valuable practical uses. To many pursuits they are important, 
and to some indispensable. Let them, then, take their proper place 
in any system of good learning, and claim nothing more than 'to be 
judged of by their results. Let them not be the unmeaning shib- 
boleth of a caste ; but, standing on the same level with all other 
intellectual pursuits, be valued exactly in proportion to their ability 
to increase the power and range and skill of the human mind, and 
to furnish it with that knowledge which shall most signally pro- 
mote the well-being and happiness of humanity. 

And, thirdly, it would seem that our whole system of instruction 
requires an honest, thorough, and candid revision. It has been for 
centuries the child of authority and precedent. If those before us 
made it what it is, by applying to it the resources of earnest and 
fearless thought, I can see no reason why we, by pursuing the same 
course, might not improve it. God intended us for progress, and 
we counteract his design when we deify antiquity, and bow down 
and worship an opinion, not because it is either wise or true, but 
merely because it is ancient. 



ON THOROUGHNESS OF INTELLECTUAL ATTAIN- 
MENT. 

{Extract from a Lecture delivered at University College, London, 
by Professor A. De Morgan.) 

There are two ways in which education is to be considered : 
that is to say, with reference to its effect upon the character and 
disposition of the individual, and also with reference to the degree 
of power and energy which is communicated to the mind. Now, 



PROFESSOR DE MORGAN. 439 

firstly, with respect to character as formed by education, it is hardly 
necessary to say that knowledge, to be useful in its effect upon 
habits, must be both liberal and accurate — must deal in reasoning 
and inference, and in sound reasoning and correct inference. So 
much is admitted by all ; but I desire to be understood as going 
further. In looking over the various branches of human inquiry, I 
do not find that what is learned in a second period is merely a 
certain portion added to that which was acquired in the first. If I 
were to teach geometry for two months, I conceive that the geome- 
try of the second month would not merely double the amount which 
the student gained in the first, but would be, as it were, a new study, 
showing other features and giving additional powers, with the ad- 
vantage of its being evident that the second step is the development 
and consequence of the first. Suppose that, instead of employing 
the second month in geometry, I had turned the attention of the 
student to algebra, would he have been a gainer by the change ? I 
answer confidently in the negative. 

To carry this further, let us take the whole career of the learner, 
and apply the same argument. There is in every branch of know- 
ledge a beginning, a middle, and an end : a beginning, in which the 
student is striving with new and difficult principles, and in which 
he is relying in a great measure on the authority of his instructor ; 
a middle, in which he has gained some confidence in his own know- 
ledge, and some power of applying his first principles. He is now 
in a state of danger, so far as the estimate which he is likely to 
form of himself is concerned. He has as yet no reason to suppose 
that his career can be checked — nothing to humble the high notion 
which he will entertain of himself, his teachers, and his subject.. 
Let him only proceed, and he will come to what I have called the 
end of the subject, and will begin to see that there is, if not a 
boundary, yet the commencement of a region which has not been 
tracked- and surveyed, and in which not all the skill which he 
has acquired in voyaging by the chart will save him from losing his 
way. It is at this period of his career that he will begin to form a 
true opinion of his own mind, which, I fully believe, is not done by 
many persons, simply because they have never been allowed to 
pursue any branch of inquiry to the extent which is necessary to 
show them where their power ends. 

For this reason I think that, whatever else may be done, some 
one subject, at least, should be well and thoroughly investigated, 
for the sake of giving the proper tone to the mind upon the use, 
province, and extent of knowledge in general. I might insist upon 
other points connected with the disposition which a want of depth 
upon all subjects is likely to produce ; but if what I have said be 
founded in reason, it is amply sufficient to justify my recommen- 
dation that, for character's sake, there should be in every liberal 
education at least one subject thoroughly studied. What the 
subject should be is comparatively of minor importance, and 
might, perhaps, be left in some degree to the student himself 



440 APPENDIX. 

Neither is it necessary, as to the point just considered, that every 
study which is undertaken should be pursued to the sarne depth. 
Convince the mind by one example, and the similarity which exists 
between all branches of knowledge will teach the same truth for all. 
1 now proceed with the consideration of the subject, in connexion 
with the power which is derived from deep study, and which is not 
to be obtained without. 

The powers which we expect to give by liberal education, or at 
least a very considerable portion of the whole, may be comprised 
under two heads, which I will take separately. 

Firstly, it is one of the most important points of education that 
the subject of it should be made a good learner. What is it that 
can be done before the age of twenty-one, either at school or col- 
lege ? Is the education then finished? Is the pupil to pursue no 
branch of study further? Nay, docs not a professional career open 
upon him immediately ? He is thrown upon the world to learn, 
with the resources of his education to rely on, and little other help ; 
for it is well known that, throughout our different plans of profes- 
sional education, there is found but a small amount of teaching, 
with free permission for the aspirant to teach himself. Now, in 
this new career there is no stopping half Avay, in accordance with a 
])revious system of education, in which many subjects were only 
half taught. The lawyer or physician must be a finished lawyer or 
physician, able to investigate- his subjects at the boundaries of 
knowledge, and to carry his previous studies successfully up to that 
point. So soon as either has arrived at the height where his edu- 
cation left him, as to the species of mental effort requisite to carry 
on his subject, from that moment his future professional study 
becomes, in point of fact, an awkward substitute for the education 
which his former teachers professed to supply. He must apply 
himself with pain to an isolated subject, under great difficulties and 
with small helps, to gain that power which might so much more 
easily have been gained when the mind was more supple, and 
formation of habits more easy. Seeing, then, that the future busi- 
ness of life will require a knowledge of the way to go through with 
a branch of inquiry, I submit that such a process should form, in 
one instance at least, the exercise of preceding years. The steady 
habit of reading, which extends over a long period ; the practice of 
retaining difficulties in mind to be considered and reconsidered, to 
be taken up at the leisure moment, and laid down as deferred but not 
abandoned ; the method of laying aside that which presents an 
obstacle insuperable for the time, but always bearing the point 
in mind in subsequent study, waiting to catch the moment at 
which more extensive reading will furnish the clue required ; — all 
these most essential requisites for successful prosecution of profes- 
sional studies are not to be learnt by anything but practice ; nor 
can they be practised upon the first half, so to speak, of a branch 
of knowledge. To make a subject teach the mind how to inquire, 
it must be carried beyond the point at which the necessity foi 



TROFESSOR DE MORGAN. 44 1 

inquiry commences. I might, were it necessary, insist upon the 
success which so frequently in after life attends those who have 
exerted their juvenile powers in the thorough mastery of some main 
branch of knowledge, so far as their years rendered it practicable. 
But this would lead me too far, and I shall, therefore, proceed to the 
second quality of mind in question. 

Among the educated classes we find those who can readily com- 
bine the ideas which they possess, and can turn their previous 
acquirements to the original consideration of such questions as 
arise ; and we also find'those who are slow at such exercise, or 
almost altogether incapable of it. In the latter class we often meet 
Avith persons who receive what is submitted to them with sufficient 
readiness of perception, and decide upon it with judgment, but, 
nevertheless, seem incapable of making one step in advance, or, as 
we should say in conveirsation, " out of their own heads." That 
the faculty of thinking easily, and originating thought, should be 
carefully cultivated, needs not to be maintained ; and it cannot 
be effectively done without a considerable degree of attention paid to 
the method of thinking which is chosen. Would you train a youth 
to discriminate nicely by aid of the study of etymology and verljal 
criticism, and by habituating him to recognise the very nice, but 
very true, distinctions which that study points out ? Then he must 
leave his accidence far behind, and become well practised in the 
routine of language : the beginner is not made ready to approach 
his ultimate object in a twelvemonth. Is it desired to sharpen his 
power of suggesting methods of deduction by means of mathe- 
matical studies ? He must go through the elements, during which 
he will find neither the materials for his original investigations, nor 
power to pursue them. He must first patiently collect knowledge, 
and the power of application will come by very slow degrees, and 
wHl not be in that state of activity which will answer the purpose, 
until something more than mere elements is effectively learnt. 
Considerations of the same character apply to every department of 
knowledge : there is a lower stage in which the pupil can do little 
more than collect ; there is a higher state of knowledge in which he 
can begin eftectively to apply thought to his collected stores, and 
thus make them help him to useful habits of mind. If it be desired 
to train the power of investigation, and to enable the student to do 
something for himself, it must be by following up one subject at 
least, to the extent just described. 

I might, further, instance the tendency to create power of perse- 
verance which must exist in sustained and digested study, and the 
habit of steady application thereby fostered. But upon these points 
there will be no dispute. I will only observe, that accuracy is seldom 
the fruit of an attention much divided in early years. Generally 
speaking, correctness in any branch of knowledge is a result only 
of much study. However simple the subject may be, however 
absurd the only possible mistake may be, I believe it may be taken 
as an axiom that the beginner is always inaccurate, and remains 



442 . APPENDIX. 

subject to this defect until he has acquired something more than 
elements. It has always appeared to me that the value of accuracy 
does not begin to be soon felt, and that it is only when the student 
has something of considerable extent to look back upon, that he 
begins to understand how much depends upon correctness. The 
same may be said as to lucid arrangement, of which it is clear that 
the learner will never see the value, until he has a considerable 
quantity of matter on which to employ himself. 

On such grounds as these I form my opinion that the ancient 
universities, in laying down, as it were, few and distinct objects of 
study, did not pursue a course for which they deserve to be the objects 
of censure. Opinions may differ as to the subjects chosen : some 
may conceive that the fundamental studies should be literary, others 
scientific ; some may think the details of the system of education 
faulty in a high, others in a low, degree. With these and similar 
questions I have here nothing to do, but only with the principle of 
not turning the attention of the student to a wide variety of subjects. 
If the universities have erred in not encouraging a minor degree 
of attention to subjects not yet comprehended in their course — and 
1 am far from saying that they have not erred — still I think that 
their error has been venial compared with that committed by the 
advocates of too extensive an education. Now, I would charge no 
one with being the favourer of either the existing extreme, or that 
which has been proposed ; perhaps the ultras of either side are 
few in number. But having given some reasons why the existing 
system in its worst form secures several great points, and provides 
for several important wants, I turn to an equal excess on the other 
side, and I ask what is the counterbalancing advantage ? When 
the student has occupied his time in learning a moderate portion of 
many different things, what has he acquired— extensive knowledge, 
or useful habits ? Even if he can be said to have varied learning, 
it will not long be true of him, for nothing flies so quickly as half- 
digested knowledge ; and when this is gone, there remains but a 
slender portion of useful power. A small quantity of learning 
qufckly evaporates- from a mind which never held any learning 
except in small quantities ; and the intellectual philosopher can 
perhaps explain the following phenomenon, — that men who have 
given deep attention to one or more liberal studies, can learn to the 
end of their lives, and are able to retain and apply very small quan- 
tities of other kinds of knowledge ; while those who have never 
learnt much of any one thing, seldom acquire new knowledge after 
they attain to years of maturity, and frequently lose the greater 
part of that which they once possessed. 



DR. EDWARD FORBES. 443 

ON THE EDUCATIONAL USES OF MUSEUMS 
{Extract from a Lecture by Edward Forbes, F.R.S.) 

Museums, of themselves alone, are powerless to educate. But 
they can instruct the educated, and excite a desire for knowledge 
in the ignorant. The labourer who spends his holiday in a walk 
through the British Museum, cannot fail to come away with a 
strong and reverential sense of the extent of knowledge possessed 
by his fellow-men. It is not the objects themselves that he sees 
there and wonders at, that make this impression, so much as the 
order and evident science which he cannot but recognise in the 
manner in which they are grouped and arranged. He learns that there 
is a meaning and value in every object however insignificant, and 
that there is a way of looking at things common and rare distinct 
from the regarding of them as useless, useful, or curious, — the three 
terms of classification in favour with the ignorant. He goes home 
and thinks over it ; and when a holiday in summer or a Sunday's 
afternoon in spring tempts him, with his wife and little ones, to 
walk into the fields,' he finds that he has acquired a new interest in 
the stones, in the flowers, in the creatures of all kinds that throng 
around him. He can look at them with an inquiring pleasure, and 
talk of them to his children with a tale about things like them that 
he had seen ranged in order in the Museum. He has gained a new 
sense, — a thirst for natural knowledge, one promising to quench the 
thirst for beer and vicious excitement that tortured him of old. If 
his intellectual capacity be limited and ordinary, he will become a 
better citizen and happier man ; if in his brain there be dormant 
power, it may waken up to make him a Watt, a Stephenson, or a 
Miller. 

It is not the ignorant only who may benefit in the way just in- 
dicated. The so-called educated are as likely to gain by a visit to 
a Museum, where their least cultivated faculties, those of observa- 
tion, may be healthily stimulated and brought into action. The 
great defect of our systems of education is the neglect of the 
educating of the observing powers, — a very djstinct matter, be it 
noted, from scientific or industrial instruction. It is necessary to 
say this, since the confounding of the two is evident in many of the 
documents that have been published of late on these very important 
subjects. Many persons seem to fancy that the elements that 
should constitute a sound and manly education are antagonistic, — 
that the cultivation of taste through purely literary studies and of 
reasoning through logic and mathematics, one or both, is opposed 
to the training in the equally important matter of observation 
through those sciences that are descriptive and experimental. 
Surely this is an error ; partizanship of the one or other method or 
rather department of mental training, to the exclusion of the rest, is 
a narrow-minded and eramping view, from whatsoever point it be 



444 APPENDIX. 

taken. Equal development and strengthening of all are required • 
for tlie constitution of the complete mind, and it is full time that 
we should begin to do now what we ought to have done long ago. 
Through the teaching of some of the sections of natural history and 
chemistry, — the former for observation of forms, the latter of phe- 
nomena, — I cannot but think the end in view might be gaihed, 
even keeping out of sight altogether, if the teacher holds it best to 
do so, what are called practical applications. For this branch of 
education Museums are the best text-books ; but, in order that they 
should be effectively studied, they require to be explained by com- 
petent teachers. Herein at present lies the main difficulty con- 
cerning the introduction of the science of observation into courses 
of ordinary education. A grade of teachers who should be able 
and willing to carry science into schools for youth has hardly yet 
appeared. Hitherto there have been few opportunities for their 
normal instruction. 



ON THE CLAIMS OF SCIENCE IN EDUCATION. 

{Extract from an Address delivered at Birmingharn by Jtis Royal 
Highness Prince Albert.) 

No human pursuits make any material progress until science is 
brought to bear upon them. We have seen, accordingly, many of 
them slumber for centuries upon centuries ; but, from the moment 
that science has touched them with her magic wand, they have 
sprung forward, and taken strides which amaze and almost awe 
the beholder. Look at the transformation which has gone around 
us since the laws of gravitation, electricity, magnetism, and the ex- 
pansive power of heat have become known to us. It has altered 
our whole state of existence — one might say, the whole face of the 
globe. We owe this to science, and to science alone ; and she has 
other treasures in store for us, if we will but call her to our 
assistance. 

It is sometimes objected by the ignorant, that science is uncertain 
and changeable, and they point with a malicious kind of pleasure 
to the many exploded theories which have been superseded by others, 
as a proof that the present knowledge may be also unsound, and, 
after all, not worth having. But they are not aware that, while 
they think to cast blame upon science, they bestow, in fact, the 
highest praise upon her. For that is precisely the difference 
between science and prejudice ; that the latter keeps stubbornly to 
its position, whether disproved or not, whilst the former is an unar- 
restable movement towards the fountain of truth, caring little for 
cherished authorities or sentiments, but continually progressing, 
feeling no false shame at her shortcomings, but, on the contrary, 
the highest pleasure, when freed from an ervor, at having advanced 



DR. T. HILL. 445 

another step towards the attainment of Divine truth — a pleasure 
not even intelligible to the pride of ignorance. 

We not unfrequently hear, also, science and practice, scientific 
knowledge and common sense, contrasted as antagonistic. A 
strange error ! for science is eminently practical, and must be so, 
as she sees and knows what she is doing, whilst mere common 
practice is condemned to work in the dark, applying natural inge- 
nuity to unknown powers to obtain a known result. 

Far be it from me to undervalue the creative power of genius, or 
to treat shrewd common sense as worthless without knowledge. 
But nobody will tell me that the same genius would not take an 
incomparably higher flight if supplied with all the means which 
knowledge can impart ; or that common sense does not become, in 
fact, only truly powerful when in possession of the materials upon 
which judgment is to be exercised. 

The study of the laws by which the Almighty governs the Uni- 
verse is therefore our bounden duty. Of these laws, our great 
academies and seats of education have, rather arbitrarily, selected 
only two spheres or groups (as I may call them), as essential parts 
of our national education : the laws which regulate quantities and 
proportions, which form the subject of mathematics ; and the laws 
regulating t-he expression of our thoughts, through the medium of 
language, that is to say, grammar, which finds its purest expression 
in the classical languages. These laws are most important branches 
of knowledge, their study trains and elevates the mind, but they 
are not the only ones ; there are others which we cannot disregard, 
which we cannot do without. 

There are, for instance, the laws governing the human mind and 
its relation to the Divine Spirit (the subject of logic and metaphy- 
sics) ; there are those which govern our bodily nature, and its con- 
nexions with the soul (the subject of physiology and psychology) ; 
those which govern human society, and the relations between man 
and man (the subjects of politics, jurisprudence, and political 
economy) ; and many others. 



ON THE CULTURE OF THE SENSES. 

{Extract fro7n an Address on Integral Education <5y Dr. Thojnias 
Hill, President of Harvard University, Afass.) 

Beginning, then, with this body, in which it has pleased our 
Creator to give us our earthly dwelling, it evidently needs a careful 
training to develop its full capacities and powers. The senses are 
capable of education, even smell, taste, and touch, much more 
hearing and sight. Our ordinary modes of education do not do 
justice to these powers ; but, on the contrary, ordinary schooling, 
by confining children to books, and withdrawing their attention 



446 APPENDIX. 

from visible objects, rather tends to render the senses less useful in 
conveying impressions to the mind. 

It is frequently thought that cultivation renders the sense itself 
more acute. Thus the blind are popularly supposed to have a more 
delicate touch, and a sharper sense of hearing, than those who see. 
But in a long course of experiments, which I once had the oppor- 
tunity of making, upon a friend blind from birth, I found that 
neither his touch nor his hearing was so acute as mine ; I could 
hear faint sounds which he could not hear, and he never heard 
those which I could not ; I could feel roughnesses on a smooth 
surface so slight that he could not detect them. Yet he could read 
fluently the raised printing for the blind, by passing his fingers over 
it, while I could not, in that way, decipher one word. He could, 
from the echo of his. footsteps, detect the position of the smallest 
sapling planted by the roadside, while I could not, with my eyes 
shut, tell from such echoes, the position of the largest tree. His 
hearing and touch were educated, — his judgment was practised, 
and he decided instantly upon the meaning of sounds which I 
doubtless heard, but could not interpret. 

Now this case of the blind is quoted merely to show the possi- 
bility of educating the senses, not to show the kind or degree of 
education for those who have sight. But that some systematic 
training of the eye and the ear is desirable, as well as possible, is 
evident from many considerations. If we wish a child to enjoy life, 
we must not allow it to go through the world with these great 
avenues for all joyous influences to enter, closed. There is a little 
dialogue in Mrs. Barbauld's "Evenings at Home," called •' Eyes and 
no Eyes," which ought to be made familiar, not only to every child, 
but more especially to every teacher of children. Two boys take a 
walk. , One sees nothing, and returns complaining of the dulness 
and tediousness of the way. The other, taking precisely the same 
road, brings home a variety of strange and beautiful plants, sees 
curious birds, observes their odd ways, converses with workmen 
about different branches of human industry, and returns full of 
joyous enthusiasm. The tale illustrates the daily experience of life. 
One man finds it all a dull, weary round of toil and sorrow, sees 
nothing and hears nothing that can cheer and enliven him ; another, 
having precisely the same fortunes, will see in each day's experience, 
lessons of wisdom and pictures of beauty, and will find, in all 
sounds, music to lift his heart into hymns of thanksgiving. 

As a source of happiness, therefore, I would have a child culti- 
vate quickness and truthfulness of observ^ation, to see everything, 
and to see accurately, — to hear everything, and to hear exactly. 
But this habit of accurate observation is not only a source of 
happiness, it is a means of usefulness. The errors in the world 
come less from illogical reasoning than from inaccurate observation 
and careless hearing. A clear and intelligent witness, who can 
state precisely what he saw, and who saw everything that there 
was to see, who can repeat exactly what he heard, and who heard 



DR. T. WILL. 447 

everything that was said, is rarer than a sound lawyer or judge. 
Most men see as much with their preoccupied imagination as with 
their eyes, and do not know how to separate their own fancies, or 
their erroneous interpretation of a fact, from the observed fact 
itself. Physicians can rarely obtain from the patient a statement 
of his symptoms, unmingled with theories as to their cause ; lawyers 
cannot get a statement of what a man did, uncoloured by the im- 
putation of motives for his action ; scientific men are well aware 
that popular testimony to any minute phenomenon is wholly untrust- 
worthy. In short, we should benefit science, art, jurisprudence, 
therapeutics, literature, and the whole intellectual and moral state 
of the community, if we could raise up a generation of men who 
would make it a matter of conscience to use their five senses with 
fidelity, and give report of their testimony with accuracy. 

I would not here fail to call your attention to the fact that, in the 
education of the senses, it is not simply power that is increased. It 
is indeed doubtful, as I have already said, whether actual power of 
sense can be materially increased ; that is, whether the eye, the 
ear, and the fingers can be rendered more sensitive to impressions 
from the external world. The need is of skill rather than of 
power ; of skill which arises from habit, and consists in part of 
habit ; which, being the result or remembrance of previous efforts, 
is precisely analogous to knowledge. 

When a philosopher asserts that there is more happiness in the 
pursuit of truth than in the possession of it, he either implies that 
there is truth to be pursued and to be obtained, and that its posses- 
sion is a good in itself, or else he asserts a most pernicious false- 
hood. The pursuit of tnith has been likened to the chase, in which 
the value to the participant consists not in the paltry fox which is 
made the sufferer, and which could have been easily slain as it was 
unkennelled, but the exhilaration of the ride in the fresh morning 
air, and in the emulation between the horses and the hounds. Thus 
also in the ingenious disputations and paradoxical arguments of 
the metaphysicians, by which they used to endeavour to prove that 
there is no motion, or that there is no rest, that a hare cannot over- 
take a tortoise, or in the more serious debates concerning psycho- 
logical and theological disputes, it is not the truth which is of 
importance, but the invigoration of a man's powers of argument. 
But of what value is fox-hunting to a man who makes no use of 
bis health and strength gained on the saddle, — and what estimate 
should we make of the man's own character, if he felt no enjoy- 
ment in anything else than the chase } Neither would there be the 
least value in increased power of argument, if there is no truth to 
be defended ; nor should we have any more respect for the man 
whose sole delight is in argumentation, than we have for a man 
who only lives for fox-hunting. 

If education is to develop the mental powers, then those powers 
must have a legitimate field of exercise. There must be truth that 
is worth knowing, and work that is worth doing, and that work 



448 APPENDIX. 

cannot be doije unless the student gain knowledge to guide hia 
power. The acqaisition of power without knowledge is not there- 
fore desirable. •. 

No man can be induced to study and to exercise his intellectual 
powers in a healthy and vigorous way, unless he devoutly believes 
that objective truth is attainable by man. A story is told of a 
benevolent Quaker who hired a man asking for work to move a 
pile of stones, which he did not care to have moved, and on the 
man asking for more work, the Friend hired him to move the 
stones back to their original position, which the poor fellow gladly 
did, and received his wages thankfully. Now it is evident, that, if 
this story be true, the man out of employment was not of Yankee 
birth, else he never would have been wilHng to move the stones 
back again. No true American, with the spirit of manhood in him, 
could be hired to do work that is absolutely useless when finished. 
A young man, whose intellectual powers are worth cultivating, 
cannot be willing to cultivate them by pursuing phantoms, — he may 
be willing to pursue trifles at times for relaxatioli, for this is evidently 
a part of the Divine plan of life, that we should have our recrea- 
tions as well as our tasks, — but he cannot make it his business, for 
seven years or more, to study what he does not believe to be abso- 
lutely true, and worth learning. Nor can he so insult the majesty 
of Truth as to doubt that there is a scheme of truth laid before us 
by our beneficent Father for our study, and for the reward of our 
labour, which is attainable by man, and towards a knowledge of 
which it is the duty of every man to struggle Avith lifelong zeal. 

But I have recently, on several occasions, expressed myself so 
fully on this scheme of Truth which has been laid before us, that I 
am inclined to pass it by with only one additional remark, and that 
is, that it is, to my mind, probable that intellectual power is not 
capable of so much increase by culture as is usually supposed ; but, 
as we erroneously think the blind man's acuteness of hearing has 
been increased, simply because his skill in interpreting the meaning 
of sounds has been improved by practice, so we attribute to an in- 
crease of intellectual power, in the educated man, the results which 
arise chiefly, if not altogether, from the increased skill with which 
he uses his powers. Practically the increased skill is equivalent to 
strength, even in physical exertions, according to the Scripture, 
" If the iron be blunt, and he do not Avhet the edge, then must he 
put to more strength : but wisdom is profitable to direct." But no 
amount of skill acquired by training can compensate, in full, for 
any great deficiency of original power. We must beware also of 
comparing the development of intellectual power by study to the 
development of muscular power by exercise. The blacksmith's 
ami and the student's brain are made of different materials, and 
the law of muscular growth cannot be extended to the nervous 
system without a breach of continuity that vitiates all inference and 
comparison. Both doubtless gain skill from habit, and this likeness 
may come from the fact that the arm is stimulated by nerves, and 



PROF. GOLDWIN SMITH. 449 

the nerves are one with the brain, — it may be only the nervous 
system which is capable of acquiring habits. But the part of the 
arm that grows by exercise is the muscle, and there is no muscle in 
the brain. The stories which phrenologists give us of the growth 
of particular organs by exercise are to be received and sifted with 
extreme caution. 

I make these remarks because I fear, that, in asserting, as I do, 
that education increases our intellectual ^^^w^r, I may be misunder- 
stood to say that it increases our intellectual powers. I doubt 
whether any training can materially augment the actual strength of 
a man's imagination or reason, or any other mental faculty ; but I 
do not doubt in the least, on the contrary I earnestly maintain, that 
education may give a man such skill in the use of his faculties, 
that, for all practical purposes, they shall be tenfold their original 
value. 



CLASSICAL AND MODERN CULTURE. 

{By Prof. Goldwin Smith. From the " Lectures on History T) 

The nobility and gentry, as a class, seem to have been certainly 
more highly educated, in the period of the late Tudors and the 
earlier Stuarts, than in any other period of our history. Then 
education was classical, but classical learning was then, not a 
gymnastic exercise of the mind in philology, but a deep draught 
from what was the great and almost the only spring of philosophy, 
science, history, and poetry, at that time. It is not to philological 
cxeicises that our earliest Latin grammar exhorts the student ; nor 
is it a mere sharpening of the faculties that it promises as his re- 
ward. It calls to the study of the language, wherein is contained 
a great treasure of wisdom and knowledge, and the student's labour 
done, wisdom^ and knowledge were to be his meed. It was to open 
that treasure, not for the sake of philological niceties or beauties, 
not to shine as the inventor of a canon, or the emendator of a 
corrupt passage, that the early scholars undertook the ardent, life- 
long, and truly romantic toils, which their massy volumes bespeak 
to our days, — our days, which are not degenerate from theirs in 
labour, but in which the most ardent intellectual labour is directed 
to a new prize. Besides, Latin was still the language of literary, 
ecclesiastic, diplomatic, legal, academic Europe ; familiarity with it 
was the first and most indispensable accomplishment, not only of 
the gentlemen, but of the high-born ladies of the time. We must 
take all this into account when we set the claims of classical against 
those of modern culture, and balance the relative amount of motive 
power we have to rely on for securing industry in cither case. In 
choosing the subjects of a boy's studies, you may use your own dis- 
cretion ; in choosing the subjects of a man's studies, if you desire 



450 APPENDIX. 

any worthy and fruitful effort, you must choose such as the world 
values, and such as may receive the allegiance of a manly mind. It 
has been said that six months of the language of Schiller and Goethe 
will now open to the student more high enjoyment than six years' 
study of the languages of Greece and Rome. It is certain, that six 
months' study of French will now open to the student more of 
Europe, than six years' study of that which was once the European 
tongue. There are changes in the circumstances and conditions 
of education, which cannot be left out of sight, in dealing with the 
generality of minds. Great discoveries have been made by acci- 
dent ; but it is an accidental discovery, and must be rated as such, 
if the studies, which were first pursued as the sole key to wisdom 
and knowledge, now that they have ceased not only to be the sole, 
but the best key to wisdom and knowledge, are still the best 
instruments of education. 



HINTS ON EARLY PHYSIOLOGICAL STUDY. 
{By Professor H. W. Acland, of Oxford^} 

General physiological questions will, in a few years, become so 
universally understood, that much ordinary literature will be unin- 
telligible to those wholly unacquainted with them. Advanced 
physiological problems are already discussed in reviews, in this and 
other countries. Sanitary inquiries, of all kinds, now come within the 
range of town-councils and officials in every class of society. The 
standard of medical knowledge, and medical practice, will be raised 
in proportion to the diffusion of physiological knowledge among the 
general public. I look, therefore, to the increase of a general know- 
ledge of physiology and hygiene as one of the greatest benefits, 
which Avill conduce, through science, to the temporal interests of 
mankind. Every form of quackery and imposture in medicine 
will, in this way, and in this way only, be discouraged. It is in 
great part on this ground — on the ground of the future benefit of 
the people, through dissemination of true perceptions of the 
groundwork of practical medicine — that I have laboured, for many 
years to promote physiological knowledge in this University, among 
students of whatever rank and destined for whate\«r occupation. . . . 

Probably no kind of literary composition will tend more to pre- 
cision of thought and statement, than the early habit of describing 
correctly natural objects. Without precision of ideas, and accuracy 
of expression, true physiological science does not exist, and can 
neither be taught nor learnt. That this is so will appear more and 
more as time goes on — the ideas and the language of my own 
hitherto most loosely worded art will become every year more defi- 
nite and significant. Its dogmas are becoming either precise or 
worthless. 



DR. ACLAND. — LORD MACAULAY. 45 1 

Dr. Acland makes the following suggestions to teachers, as to 
the mode of teaching physiology : — 

I. For the sake of precision in a subject which contains neces- 
sarily many doubtful points, introduce, where you can, precise 
definitions and numerical calculations, weights, dimensions, micro- 
graphic and others. 

I I. For the study of external characters, encourage the collection 
of Fauna and Flora of the neighbourhood, including, in the case of 
all the boys, microscopic species. For the study of organs and 
functions, show dissections where you can. A rabbit, a rat, a 
sparrow, pig, perch, snail, bee, a few infusoria will enable you, at 
any time of the year, to show some of the most important types of 
structure in the animal kingdom, 

III. Encourage the boys to put up microscopic objects. The 
minute manipulations will give neatness and precise habits. Little 

, apparatus is required, and no " mess " need be made. 



THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL LANGUAGES. 

{From the '■'Essay on the Atheniaii Orators^^ by Lord Macaulay.) 

Modern writers have been prevented by many causes from sup- 
plying the deficiencies of their classical predecessors. At the time of 
the revival of literature no man could, without great and painful 
labour, acquire an accurate and elegant knowledge of the ancient 
languages ; and unfortunately those grammatical and philological 
studies, without which it were impossible to understand the great 
works of Athenian and Roman genius, have a tendency to cofitract 
the views and deaden the sensibility of those who follow them with 
extreme assiduity. A powerful mind which has been long employed 
in such studies may be compared to the gigantic spirit in the 
Arabian tale, who was persuaded to contract himself to small 
dimensions in order to enter within the enchanted vessel, and when 
his prison had been closed upon him fancied himself unable to 
escape from the narrow boundaries to the measure of which he 
had reduced his stature. When the means have long been the 
objects of application, they are naturally substituted for the end. 
It was said by Eugene of Savoy, that the greatest generals have 
commonly been those who have been at once raised to command, 
and introduced to the great operations of war without being cm- 
ployed in the petty calculations and manoeuvres which employ the 
time of an inferior officer. In literature the principle is equally 
sound. The great tactics of criticism will, in general, be best under- 
stood by those who have not had much practice in drilling syllables 
and particles. I remember to have observed among the French 
authors a ludicrous instance of this. A scholar, doubtless of great 
learning, recommends the study of some long Latin treatise, of 



452 APPENDIX. 

which I now forget the name, on the religion, manners, government, 
and language of the early Greeks. " For there," says he, " you will 
learn everything of importance that is contained in the Iliad and 
Odyssey, without the trouble of reading two such tedious books." 
Alas ! it had not occurred to the poor gentleman, that all the know- 
ledge to which he attached so much value was useful only as it 
illustrated the great poems which he despised, and would be as 
worthless for ahy other purpose as the mythology of Cafjfraria, or 
the vocabulary of Otaheite, 



EXTRACTS FROM THE EVIDENCE GIVEN BEFORE 
THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS' COMMISSION. 

, Evidence of Professor William B. Carpenter. 

Q. I believe, Dr. Carpenter, you are Registrar of the London 
University ? — A. I am. Q. How long have you been Registrar 1 
— A. Six years. Q. I believe you are likewise a member of the 
Council of the Royal Society ? — A. Yes. Q. Have you been able 
to form any opinion as to the use of the physical sciences, as a 
training of the mind, as compared with pure mathematics ? — A. 
I think that their function is quite different. I think that each is 
a supplement to the other. I should be very sorry to see either left 
out. It appears to me, that the use of the physical sciences is to 
train a class of mental faculties, which are ignored, so to speak, by 
a purely classical or a purely mathematical training, or by both 
combined. The observation of external phenomena, and the exer- 
cise of the reasoning faculties upon such phenomena, are matters 
altogether left out of the ordinary public-school education. I am 
speaking of schools in which classics and mathematics are the sole 
means of mental discipline. Mathematical training is limited to 
one very special kind of mental action. 

(2- In the schools? — A. I mean that mathematical training exer- 
cises the mind most strenuously in a very narrow groove, so to 
speak. It starts with axioms which have nothing to do with external 
phenomena, but which the mind finds in itself ; and the whole 
science of mathematics may be evolved out of the original axioms 
which the mind finds in itself. I do not go into the question^^ 
whether they are intuitive, or whether they are generalizations ot 
phenomena, found at a very early age ; in cither case, the mind 
finds it in itself. Now, it is the essence of scientific training, that 
the mind finds the objects of its study in the external world. As 
Bacon says, Hojno minister ct intcrpres naturcc; so it appears to 
me, that a training which leaves out of view the relation of man to 
external nature is a very defective one, and that the faculties which 
bring his intelligence into relation with the phenomena of the 
external world are subjects for education and discipline equally 



DR. WM. B. CARPENTER. 453 

important with the faculties by which he exercises his reason purely 
upon abstractions. 

Q. Then you consider that the mind, if it only had the training 
that could be given by close study of classics and of pure mathe- 
matics, has not had so great an advantage in training, as if the 
study of physical science had been added ? — A. I am quite of that 
opinion ; and I may add, that, having given considerable attention 
to the reputed phenomena of mesmerism, electro-biology, spiri- 
tualism, &c., I have had occasion to observe, that the wan/ oj 
scientific habits of mind is the source of a vast amount of prevalent 
misconception as to what constitutes adequate proof of the marvels 
reported by witnesses, neither untruthful nor unintelligent as to 
ordinary matters. I could name striking instances of such miscon- 
ception in men of high literary cultivation, or high mathematical 
attainments ; whilst I have met with no one, who had undergone 
the discipline of an adequate course of scientific study, who has 
not at once recognised the fallacies in such testimony when they 
have been pointed out to him. 

Q. I observe, Dr. Carpenter, that your matriculation examinations 
do not take place till the applicant is past sixteen? — A. Yes. Q. Being 
of that age, you see great benefit in making natural philosophy and 
chemistry part, of that examination, in addition to a certain exami- 
nation in classics ; and you consider that not merely as fitting a 
boy for success in the active business of life, but also as a means 
of training the mind, and that much benefit results from such com- 
bination. I should like to ask you, whether you consider that 
similar recommendations exist to the introduction of physical 
sciences at an early age ? You applied your observations to your 
own candidates for matriculation ? — A. I think that there is great 
advantage in commencing very early. I have commenced with 
my own children at a very early period in training their observing 
faculties, simply to recognise and to understand, and to describe 
correctly what they see, — showing them simple experiments, and 
desiring them to write down an account of them ; and, from my own 
experience, I should say, that a boy of ten years old is quite capable 
of understanding a very large proportion of what is here set down 
under the head of natural philosophy. 

Q. Is there not a danger of disturbing the power of sustained 
attention, if too many subjects of instruction are brought before 
boys at an early age 1 — At I think that very much depends on the 
manner in which it is done. A good teacher need never forfeit the 
training of sustained attention by directing the attention to the facts 
of nature, because the attention is as healthfully exercised in what 
is going on before the child, as it is in the study of a book. 

(2- Were you at a public school yourself .-* — A. I was not. 

Q. You were at a large classical school, were you not ? — A. I was 
brought up in a private school. Q. A large school?— yi. About 
twenty was the average number. 

(2- Should you, from your experience as a boy, confirm the opinion 



454 APPENDIX. 

you have now expressed ? — A. In the school in which I was brought 
up, all these subjects were taught systematically ; and I certainly 
believe, that there was no deficiency there of power of attention, and 
that the training which was given in classics and mathematics — 
which was a very substantial one — was not at all impaired by the 
attention to these other subjects. 

Q. At what age did attention to these subjects commence at your 
school ? — A . 1 should think that about twelve years might be taken 
as the average. Q. Have you any practical acquaintance with tHe 
system of our public schools? — A. Not practically: I know the 
system generally. Q. You know the amount of time, perhaps, 
given to particular subjects, speaking generally ? — A. Yes. 

Q. Have you formed any opinion as to whether it would be 
desirable to diminish the proportion of time given, say to classics 
or mathematics, for the purpose of introducing physical science ? — 
A. I have formed an opinion, that at the earlier age, say from ten 
to twelve or thirteen, the amount of study given to classics may be 
advantageously diminished. I have been led to conclude, from 
considerable opportunities of observation, that those who have com- 
menced classics later than usual, and have been of average intelli- 
gence, have, by the age of sixteen, acquired as good a classical 
knowledge as those who have begun earlier,' — whose minds have 
been fixed upon classical study for two or three years longer. I 
may state, that that is quite the opinion of many gentlemen of very 
large experience in education ; and, I believe, I may quote Pro- 
fessor Pillans, of Edinburgh, as entertaining it. Dr. Hodgson, who 
had for a long time a large public school in the neighbourhood of 
Manchester, wrote a pamphlet some years ago in defence of that 
opinion. ... I could quote several instances of young men who have 
shown very remarkable proficiency in classical study at the age of 
sixteen and seventeen, who began very late — at thirteen and fourteen. 

Q. I understand you to attach very high importance to the 
philosophical study of language ? — A. Yes. Q. And to its being com- 
menced early ? — Yes. Q. I believe you are author of works called 
" The Principles of Physiology, General and Comparative," " The 
Microscope and its Revelations," and of "An Introduction to the 
Study of Foraxninifera " ? — A. Yes. 

Q. Do you consider that your taste for those studies was 
awakened at school ? — A. My taste for physical and chemical 
science was certainly awakened at school. The training that I 
had in my school-course, and the advantages which I had of 
attending lectures at the Philosophical Institution at Bristol, at 
the time that I was going through that course, certainly tended to 
develop my taste for science generally. At that time, I knew next 
to nothing of natural history ; and I suppose it was the circum- 
stance of my having entered the medical profession, and being led 
to seek for scientific culture in the subjects on which medicine is 
founded, that caused me to direct my attention to natural history 
and physiology — physiology as based on natural history, in fact. 



DR. WM. B. CARPENTER. 455 

Q. You were likewise instructed in mathematics at school ? — 
A. Yes. Q. Had you any occasion to observe at school that there 
was one class of minds which had a great aptitude for mathematics, 
another for the physical sciences, and another for the classics ; 
so that there were three different types of mental intelligence ? — 
A. Yes. 

Q. Do you not consider, that it is an injury to a boy who may 
have a turn for the sciences of observation, or for other natural 
sciences, that he has no instruction in them whatever up to the 
time he is eighteen — up to the time of his going to the Univer- 
sity? — A. I feel that very strongly. I am quite satisfied that there 
is such a class of minds. I see it in the candidates for our de- 
grees in sciences. Though the degrees have only been instituted 
two or three years, yet I am quite certain, from what I have seen 
of those who have become candidates for them, that there is a 
very decided aptitude for physical sciences ; and that those gene- 
rally are persons who have a distaste for classics. I may say, with 
regard to myself, that I never had any taste for classics. I went 
through a very long course of classical training ; and I feel very 
strongly indeed the value of the discipline which it gave me : but I 
never, as a boy, had any taste for classics (though now I can come 
back and read a classical author with pleasure), because I was weary 
of the drudgery of the ordinary routine of instruction (to which I 
had been subjected from an unusually early age), whilst at sixteen 
my mind was not sufficiently advanced in that direction to appre- 
ciate the higher beauties of a classical author. For instance, I 
could then read the " Prometheus ; " but I did not understand 
its argument. 

(2- It would be an injury to the mental capital of a nation, so to 
say, to give no instruction to boys in the physical sciences up to 
eighteen ? — A. I should certainly consider that it leaves that 
branch of the mental faculties, which every individual has in a 
certain degree, uncultivated, and would leave without cultivation 
those powers which certain individuals have in a very remarkable 
degree. 

Q. Is it not the case, that there* are some boys at scjiool who 
have only a slight aptitude for classical studies, who have an apti- 
tude for the sciences of observation and the experimental sciences ? 
— A. I am quite certain of that. I have five sons ; and, in their 
education, I endeavour to train what I perceive to be the special 
aptitude of each. Thus, my eldest son has shown a decided apti- 
tude for the physical and chemical sciences : he has taken his 
Bachelor of Arts degree in the University, and has now taken that 
of Bachelor of Science. He took the Bachelor of Arts degree, 
because, at that time, there was no degree in science ; he went 
through the classical training required for it, but his whole bent is 
for the exact sciences. On the other hand, my second son has as 
strong a turn for literary culture as my eldest son has for scientific, 
and I have encouraged that just as I would the scientific culture — 



456 



APPENDIX. 



taking care, however, in each case, that the other subjects were not 
neglected. 

Q. I think you mentioned that you considered that the study of 
physical science at an early age was conducive to the cultivation of 
the intellectual faculties as well as of the senses ? — A. I think so, 
decidedly, if it is rightly taught. I think very much depends upon 
the teacher. 

Q. Do you think that the mind, ordinarily speaking, is as apt 
for the exercise of its faculties upon the subjects of natural science 
as upon grammar and mathematical subjects at the early period of 
life ? — A. I should say, more so ; that it is more easy to fix a child's 
attention upon something which it sees than upon an abstraction. 

Q. Do you think that in that point of view, in fact, it is so far a 
subject better calculated to call out a healthy action of the reason- 
ing powers than the more abstract subjects of grammar and mathe- 
matics ? — A. I think it is at the early period. I think that a lad 
of from ten to twelve years of age is better fitted to be led to 
observe and reason upon what he observes in objective phenomena 
than he is to reason upon abstractions. I think that, from say 
twelve years of age, the powers may be healthfully exercised upon 
abstractions ; but, as far as I can judge, a child in learning a 
language learns by rote purely, or almost purely, up to say twelve 
years of age ; but after that he begins, if he is well taught, to 
understand the i-ationale (so to speak) of the rules ; but it is a 
mere matter of memory with him up to that time. 

Q. In fact, you doulDt whether, in the cultivation of language 
the reasoning powers are much exercised at all at that time ? — A. 
Yes. 

Q. Have you been sufficiently in company with youths emerging 
from childhood to say whether there is, in your opinion, at all a 
natural curiosity which arises at that time for the observation and 
comprehension of the phenomena of nature ? — A. I should say 
there is. I have seen a great deal of youths of different ages in 
the course of my life. I have been always interested in education, 
and have seen and known a great deal of what takes place in 
education among the humbler classes ; and amongst them there is 
most decidedly a. readiness of observation, and a readiness of 
power of apprehension and of reasoning upon phenomena of nature, 
which shows that that must be universal. 

Q. Have you observed, that, besides that power, there is a 
curiosity with regard to the phenomena, and an interest in that 
sense with regard to the phenomena of the outward world? — A. I 
think there is, if it is not repressed. My opinion is, that the ten- 
dency of public-school education is to repress all that curiosity, — 
to withdraw the attention so completely from those subjects that it 
has no development. 

(2- With regard to the study of language, I think you said, that 
you had had some opportunity of observing that youths who began 
later co.ild make so much progress, owing to the different state of 



DR. WM. B. CARPENTER. 45'/ 

their faculties then, as that they could recover the amount that had 
been lost to the study of language by deferring it? — A. Yes : pro- 
viding always that their mental habits have been properly trained ; 
Jhat the power of sustained attention, for instance, has been exer- 
cised in other ways. . . . 

Q. With regard to their bearing on literary studies, do you think 
that the mixture of the physical sciences with the literary studies 
would be a mixture which would be conducive of benefit to both, or 
otherwise ? — A. I think decidedly conducive of benefit, because I 
cannot think that any mental training can be really adequate which 
is one-sided ; and, again, all experience shows that a change of 
study from one subject to another is advantageous in this way, — 
that it is a positive refreshment to the mind. I believe, that a lad 
who has been exercised a certain number of hours in the study of 
language, or in the study of mathematics, would enjoy going to the 
study of physical science. If it is properly handled, by a good 
teacher, he would enjoy that as much as he would enjoy going into 
some desultory course of reading for recreation. "v 

<2. In fact, the exchange would produce very muchMeVslphysical 
exhaustion than the continuance of the same study for the same 
number of hours ? — A. Yes : I feel sure of that. I may mention, 
that there is at present going on a good deal of inquiry in regard 
to the number of hours which can be healthfully employed in study 
by the class of children who attend the National and British schools ; 
and it is a subject in which I have taken a great deal of interest. 
I have happened to come in contact with a good many individuals 
who are working out experiments in different ways ; and there is a 
very general conviction amongst the better and more intelligent 
class of masters in those schools, that four hours a day is as much 
as can be healthfully employed in purely intellectual acquirements 
by children of that class. Now, I believe that the allowance which 
is healthful for children of that class may be, perhaps, double for 
those of an educated class. 

Q. At what age ? — A. Say from eight to twelve ; but the pre- 
valence of this conviction shows, thatthe masters, practically, do 
not find that the children learn more who are at school for six or 
seven hours than those who are at school only from three and a 
half to four hours. Q. Do you think that you would find a dif- 
ferent, that is, a larger measure of hours suitable to health, if there 
was this difference in studies at different times of the day ? — A. Yes : 
I feel sure of it. Q. I suppose you say that as a physiologist ? , . . 
A. yes; I am speaking as a physiologist decidedly. I am quite 
satisfied of it as a fact in ou-r mental constitution. . . . 

Q. You said just now, that you thought there were instances of 
boys taking up the study of classics late, and, if they were properly 
trained in other ways, making up for the lost time by the superiority 
of their power of application and of learning. Do you think that 
that might be the case also in the study of physical science ; that a 
boy taking to study physical science late might make up for lost 
21 



458 APPENDIX. 

tin« by beginning at an age at which his powers were more d©- 
veloped ? — A. I have no doubt that he might make up for lost time : 
but I think that the natural period for commencing the. study of 
physical science is at an earlier age, because I think kny right 
system of education will take up the faculties in the order of their 
development ; and it is quite certain, that the observing faculties 
are developed before the reasoning powers. An infant, during the 
first year of its life, is educating its observing faculties in a way we 
really scarcely give it credit for ; and the training of the observing 
faculties, by attention to the phenomena of nature, both in physical 
and in natural science, seems to me to be the natural application of 
time at the age of say from eight to twelve. 

Q. You supported your argument by the case of a boy who had 
studied French as an introduction to the study of Latin and Greek, 
and had not suffered in his classical studies by defemng them : 
would you not think, that a boy would suffer in the study of lan- 
guages by wholly giving his early years to the study of physical 
science, and not taking up language at all till he got to the age, 
say of twelve ? — A. Yes, I think he would. I think that neglecting 
the study of language altogether would be a very undesirable thing ; 
but what I mean is this : I should prefer to see the faculties which 
are concerned in the cultivation of physical science trained at the 
earlier period, because I believe that is the natural period in which 
the observing faculties and the elementary reasoning processes may 
be best cultivated, and the period at which the mind is not pre- 
pared for the more advanced culture of language. 

Q. But is it not the period at which it is also prepared for the 
commencement of the culture of language? — A. Certainly ; but, 
then, I think all that the culture of language may give at that 
period may be given in a smaller number of hours than are usually 
devoted to it. 

Q. A question was asked as to the possibility of a boy, well 
cultivated in classics, making up afterwards for deficiency in the 
natural sciences. Would there not be a distinction between the 
sciences of observation and the sciences of experiment ? Is it 
likely that a grown-up person, or a boy beyond a certain age, would 
make up for the neglect of the faculty of observation ? — A. I think 
not so well. If I am allowed to do so, I may mention my own 
experience in the matter. My greatest difficulty in the pursuit of 
systematic zoology and botany has arisen, I am quite satisfied, 
from the circumstance, that I was not early trained in those sciences. 
I can recognise a flower or an animal when I see them, and I can 
remember their names. I have no difficulty as to verbal memory ; 
but I have a difficulty in connecting the two things, the flower or 
the animal and the name ; and I believe, that, if I had had an 
early training in the habit of systematic nomenclature, I should 
not have experienced that difficulty in later life. 

Q. Is it not, to a certain extent, the case with regard to the 
faculty of observation, as with regard to aptness for rapid calcu- 



SIR CHARLES LYELL. 459 

lation in arithmetic, that the habit should be acquired early ? — A. 
Yes : I am very strongly of that opinion ; and I know that it is 
very easily acquired under proper training. The late Professor 
Henslow studied the method of teaching natural science, I believe, 
as carefully as any one ; and he was wonderfully successful in 
training that order of faculties. 

Q. Is it the result of your experience, that, by the exclusion of 
the physical sciences and of the methods of investigation employed 
in their study, the mind does not receive as good a training as it 
might do ? — A. I have been acquainted with several gentlemen 
who have passed with distinction through a course of public school 
and University training, and who have confessed to me with regret 
their inaptitude to understand any scientific subject whatever, — 
their want, not only of the knowledge, but of the mental aptitude. 

Q. That is to say, that you consider that the physical sciences 
and methods of investigation call forth different faculties of the 
mind from those which are developed by the studies of mathematics 
and classics ? — A. Yes : I thirik so very decidedly. 

Q. And that, therefore, by neglecting the physical sciences, those 
faculties lie dormant if they existed ? — A. Yes. 

EVIDENCE OF SIR CHARLES LYELL. 

Q, As we know your attention has long been turned to this 
subject, I would beg to ask you, as the result of your observation 
and ^experience, what you consider to be the position of physical 
science and natural history in this country, as far as regards our 
educational system ? — A. I think it is hardly too strong a term t-o 
say, that they have been ignored. There has been a move of late 
in'the Universities to restore them somewha-t to that place which 
they formerly held, when the sciences were much less advanced, 
but when, in proportion to what was then known, they held a very 
fair position ; and within the last two hundred years I consider 
them to have been deprived of the proper position which they once 
held. The public schools being modelled in a great measure on 
the system of the Universities, they have, in like manner, entirely 
neglected them, even in those schools where they are educated 
sometimes up to the age of seventeen or eighteen. I think, there- 
fore, that in that period of the progress of the nation, when these 
branches have been acquiring more and more importance, both 
theoretically and practically, that has been precisely the time when 
they have been more and more excluded from the teaching of the 
higher classes of this country. 

Q. To what would you attribute the neglect of these studies that 
has been shown at the schools in particular ? — A. I think that the 
schools being preparatory, in a great measure, to the Universities, 
they frame their system in regard to those subjects which are to 
obtain the chief rewards, prizes, and honours at the University. 
Although a large proportion of the boys at our larger schools do 



460 



APPENDIX. 



not go to the University (I do not know what proportion, but I 
know that it is very large), nevertheless, the system is planned as if 
they were all going there ; and whatever be the plan adopted at the 
Universities, and, particularly, whatever may be the matriculation, 
the entrance examination to the University, that will in no small 
degree govern what is taught in public schools, if any branch of 
knowledge is entirely omitted. 

Q. You consider, then, that as there is no demand for physical 
sciences and natural history at the Universities, there is no attempt 
to supply them at the schools ? — A. Exactly : that is a great reason. 
Howe\'er, it must not be forgotten, that those schoolmasters are 
brought up in the Universities without a knowledge of the sciences 
and natural history ; and, having no such knowledge, it is very 
natural that a great number of them should entertain some preju- 
dice, or think ver>' slightingly of them. 

Q. You would consider, then, that although the great majority of 
boys educated at our public schools .do not go to the Universities, 
yet the requirements of those who do go to the Universities do, m 
fact, regulate the system of the school? — A. Quite so. 

Q. Therefore, you would say, that the majority do not have the 
education that would be best for them ; and, in fact, are sacri- 
ficed to the minority who are proceeding to the University? — 
A. Yes 

Q. At our public schools, it is generally considered that the 
study of the classics is the best possible training for the mind ; but 
would you consider that the mind does not get the best possible 
training, if the study of the physical sciences is omitted ? and would 
you consider that the study of physical science calls into operation 
and develops faculties of- the mind that are not called into activity 
by classics or mathematics ? — A. Yes : I do most decidedly. I 
think the reasoning powers and the judgment are more cultivated 
by these subjects than by the exclusive study of the classics. 

Q. Of classics and mathematics r — A. Yes. 

Q. Pure mathematics? — A. Yes. I think mathematics applied 
often does that which pure mathematics will not do. . . . 

Q. It is sometimes said, with great force, that the faculties of 
observation ripen, so to say, at an earlier period than the reasoning 
powers? — A. Yes. ^ 

Q. Do you think that that would or would not point to the con- 
chision, that such sciences as botany and chemistry-, perhaps, and 
so on, should be communicated at an earlier period ? — A. Yes. I 
have no children of my own, but I have nephews in whom I take 
much interest ; and I certainly have observed that the powers of 
obser\'ation, and the interest of observing with accuracy, are very 
early developed, — indeed, at nine or ten ; and they learn a vast deal 
of other things in consequence, if they be taught any of these 
branches. ... Q. You would prefer their beginning at an early 
period? — A. Yes, indeed I should.... Q. Do you think that 
purely literary pursuits, and the literature of the countiy generally, 



SIR CHARLES LYELL. 46 1 

would receive benefit by a degree of scientific education and in- 
struction being given in the public schools and the Universities in 
conjunction with a literary education? — A. Indeed, I think it 
would. I think the Uterature would gain. I think the literary 
writings of a man like Hallam, for instance, who had taught him- 
self science and natural histor>', are of a higher stamp than they 
would have been if he had not had that knowledge. . . . 

Q. In your geological investigations in Germany, have you be- 
come acquainted with many literary men there ? — A. Yes. 

Q. Among the class of literary men, is there greater or less 
knowledge of the physical sciences than in England? — A. There is 
decidedly more general knowledge, even where there is no special 
knowledge. They understand a great deal more what we are about 
than the literary men and classical scholars of this coimtry do. . . . 

Q. With regard to the clerg}', have you seen an\-thing of the 
clergy in Germany ? Would you say that they were better ac- 
quainted with such subjects? — A. Yes, indeed, I think they are. I 
think there is a great advantage in that resjject in Germany. In 
fact, it was an obser\"ation of Baron Von Buch, when he came 
over here, " In regard to Church matters, or the connexion of 
science and religion, you are as much behind us in freedom, as you 
are ahead of us in your poHtical institutions ; " and I attribute that, 
in some measure, to there being a better general notion of science 
among the clerg)'. . . . 

Q. Have you any means of knowing whether, in the middle 
classes, there is a greater knowledge on these subjects at present 
than in the upper classes ? — A. It is a ver}' remarkable fact, that, if 
a scientific book is published, it depends more for its sale on the 
middle classes of the manufacturing districts than on the rich 
countT}' gentlemen and clergy of the agricultural parts of the 
country ; and therefore, if there is distress, like the present in 
Lancashire, the publisher wouldrsay, " Do not bring out your book 
now.'"' 

Q. In a poHtical point of %"iew, is not that not only an unhealthy, 
but a dangerous state of things, in some repects, that the material 
world should be ver>' much better known by the middle classes of 
society than by the upper classes ? — A. Certainly ; and I think it 
is particularly so in reference to the teaching in this country by the 
clerg\' ; and a vast proportion of the University men are going into 
the Church. . . . 

Q. But if the upper classes, in acquiring a greater amount of this 
knowledge of the physical world, were to lose any of their literary 
and intellectual superiority-, might they not thereby endanger their 
pre-eminence as much in the one way as they would gain in the 
other .' — A. In answer to that question, I think I could say, from 
my O'svn experience, that, in consequence of narrowing the number 
of subjects taught, a large portion of those who have not a parti- 
cular aptitude for hteran* pursuits, but who would have shown a 
strong taste for the sciences; are forced into one line ; and, after 



462 APPENDIX. 

they leave their College, they neglect branches they have been 
taught, and so cultivate neither the one nor the other. I have 
known men, quite late in life, who have forgotten all the Latin and 
Greek which they spent their early years in acquiring, hit upon 
geology or some other branch, and all at once their energies have 
been awakened, and you have been astonished to see how they 
came out. They would have taken that line long before, and done 
good work in it, had they been taught the elements of it at school. 
Q. So that there was a mental waste in their youth? — A. Quite so. 

EVIDENCE OF DR. M. FARADAY. 

Q. Will you have the goodness to give us your opinion, as the 
result of your observation and experience, upon the state of know- 
ledge of the physical sciences and natural history in this country, 
with reference to our educational system? — A. I can give you my 
impression, as far as that is permissible, independent of any com- 
parison between that part of knowledge and other branches. I 
am not an educated man, according to the usual phraseology, and 
therefore can make no comparison between languages and. natural 
knowledge, except as regards the utility of language in conveying 
thoughts ; but that the natural knowledge which has been given to 
the world in such abundance during the last fifty years should 
remain, I may say, untouched, and that no sufficient attempt should 
be made to convey it to the young mind, growing up and obtaining 
its first views of these things, is to me a matter so strange that 
I find it difficult to understand it. Though I think I see the 
opposition breaking away, it is yet a very hard one to overcome. 
That it ought to be overcome, I have not the least doubt in 
the world. . . . 

Q. You probably are aware that what our great schools profess 
and aim at most, is to give a good training to the mind ; and it is 
there considered, perhaps, as you were saying just now, from habit 
and from prestige, that that is effectually done by the study of the 
classics and of pure mathematics, and that in that way they furnish 
the best training of the mind that can be given. Now, I would ask 
you, whether you think, supposing the training of the mind is the 
object in the pubhc schools, that that system of training the mind 
is complete which excludes physical science ? whether the study of 
physical science would call into activity faculties of the mind that 
are not so developed by studies confined to classics and mathe- 
matics ? — A. The phrase, "training of the mind," has to me a very 
indefinite meaning. I would like a profound scholar to indicate to 
me what he means by " training of the mind ; " in a literary sense, 
including mathematics. What is their effect on the mind ? , What 
is the kind of result that is called the " training of the mind " ? Or 
what does the mind learn by that training ? It learns things, I have 
no doubt. By the very act of study, it learns to be attentive, to be 
persevering, to be logical, according to the word " logic." But docs 



DR. M. FARADAY. 463 

it learn that training of the mind which enables a man to give a 
reason, in natural things, for an effect which happens from certain 
causes ; or why, in any emergency or event, he does, or should do, 
this, that, or the other ? It does not suggest the least thing in 
these matters. It is the highly educated man that we find coming 
to us, digain and again, and asking the most simple questions in 
chemistry and mechanics ; and when we speak of such things as 
the conservation of force, the permanency of matter, and the un- 
changeability of the laws of nature, they are far from compre- 
hending them, though they have relation to us in every action of 
our lives. Many of these instructed persons are as far from having 
the power of judging of these things as if their minds had never 
been trained. 

Q. You would not consider that the minds of such men as you 
allude to, who have been highly trained, and who have great literary 
proficiency, are in a state readily to receive such information as 
they are deficient in ? — A. I find them greatly deficient ; not in 
their own studies, or in their applications of them, but when taken 
out of that into natural sciences. Ask what is the reason of this 
•or that, — they have a difficulty in giving the reason. If they are 
called upon to judge in a case of natural science, they find it difficult 
to give a judgment ; they have not studied it. 

Q. You do not find any particular aptitude in those minds for 
grasping a new subject? — A. I do not. Take those minds, and 
apply them to the special subjects which they have never touched 
upon or known of, and they have to go to the beginning, just as the 
juvenile does. They are no more ready. The young mind, as I 
find it, formed by habits, forced this way and that way, is very 
observant, and asks most acute questions. I do not find that mind, 
generally speaking, backward in understanding the statement I 
make to him in simple language ; and if I tell him this or that, — 
if I tell him that the atmosphere is compounded of oxygen, nitrogen, 
and so on, and then shape it into a question, — he can generally 
answer me. I must confess to you, that I find the grown-up minds 
coming back to me with the same questions over and over again. 
They ask, What is water composed of.? though I have told the 
same persons, a dozen years in succession, that it is composed of 
oxygen and hydrogen. Their minds are not prepared to receive or 
to embody these notions ; and that is where you want education, — 
to teach them the A B C of these things. 

Q, You think that exclusive attention to one set of studies during 
early life rather precludes the ready adoption of these ideas ? — A. 
Yes. It does not blunt the mind — I do not think it does — but it so 
far gives the growing mind a certain habit, a certain desire and 
willingness to accept general ideas of a literary kind, and to say 
all the rest is nonsense, and belongs to the artisan, that it is not 
prepared to accept, and does not accept, the other and greater 
knowledge. 

Q, So tliat the mind runs in a particular groove, from which it 



4^4 APPENDIX. 

does not extract itself easily ? — A. Yes : by that degree of habit, 
the mind, I do think, is really injured for the reception of other 
knowledge. . . , Q. Supposing the one main object of education to 
be to train the mind to ascertain the sequence of a particular con- 
clusion from certain premises ; to detect a fallacy ; to correct undue 
generalization ; or generally to prevent the growth of mistakes in 
reasoning, — should you consider physical science is as valuable 
for that object as classical instruction is ? — A. I do not see clearly 
how classical studies do educate the mind for that kind of judgment; 
but, as regards the exercise of the judgment on the laws of matter, 
it is to me the most fertile source of the exercise of that judgment, 
and the true logic of facts, which I can conceive of, and which 
enables the man,. when he has the facts in his hand, to apply them 
in every form and shape. ... I think I see a most lamentable de- 
ficiency, even in the highly educated men, of that kind of logic. . . . 
I hope I shall offend nobody if I tr}' to illustrate my feeling in that 
respect. Up to this very day, there come to me persons of good 
education, men and women, quite fit for all that you expect from 
education : they come to me, and they talk to me about things that 
belong to natural science ; about mesmerism, table-turning, flying 
through the air ; about the laws of gravity : they come to me to ask 
me questions ; and they insist against me, who think I know a little of 
these laws, that I am wrong and they are right, in a manner which 
shows how little the ordinary course of education has taught such 
minds. Let them study natural things, and they will get a very 
different idea from that which they have obtained from that edu- 
cation. It happens up to this day. I do not wonder at those who 
have not been educated at all; but such as I refer to, say to mc, 
"I have felt it, and done it, and seen it ; and, though I have not 
flown through the air, I believe it." Persons who have been fully 
educated, according to the present system, come with the same 
propositions as the untaught and stronger ones, because they have 
a stronger conviction that they are right. They are ignorant of 
their ignorance at the end of all that education. It happens even 
with men who are excellent mathematicians. They and you will 
say, "But you are most likely v/rong, and they right." It may be 
so ; at all events, the education we speak of in natural things, will 
be something in addition to that which they gain by their study 
of the classics. Until they know what are the laws of nature, and 
until they are taught by education to see what are the natural facts, 
they cannot clear their minds of these, as I say, most absurd incon- 
sistencies ; and I say again, as I said once before, that the system 
of education that could leave the mental condition of the public 
body in the state in which this subject has found it, must have been 
greatly deficient in some very important principle. 

Q. When you say that you have not been able to understand in 
what way classical instruction trains the mind, you are aware that 
many, perhaps most, of the defenders of classical education defend 
it on the ground, not that it teaches certain things, nor that the 



DR. M. FARADAY. 465 

classics, as classics, have any peculiar value ; but that, through the 
classics, both the laws of language and the structure of language arc 
studied ; and that it is the study of the laws of language which is 
held best to develop and strengthen the mental faculties ? — A. That 
is narrowing the question this way, that, in place of saying you are 
taking the classics, you take the laws of language ; and no doubt 
they give that education, as far as I can see. I am reasoning in the 
dark, because I have not had the opportunity, and have not the 
right, to speak of these things. I confess all that ; but although 
it be a very important thing to know language perfectly, and to know 
its laws, or to carry it out, as the most profound scholar would do, 
by tracing all languages to an original one, or what not, — Max 
Miiller or anybody else, — that is not all knowledge. I am not at- 
tacking the classics at all. I am only putting in a plea for that 
other knowledge which belongs to our absolute nature, and, in fact, 
which language only helps to describe. 

Q. What is held, 1 believe, by the defenders of classical literature 
is, that the study of language strengthens the general powers of the 
mind in its application to any other subjects whatever which may 
come before it, and that in that way the mind is best strengthened 
as an instrument for acquiring any other kind of knowledge what- 
ever ? — A. I see the value of those studies which do lead to such a 
result ; but I think that, at present, society at large is almost 
ignorant of the like and greater value of the kind of studies which 
I recommend. ... I say, that these physical sciences, in my opinion, 
ought to be brought forward also ; and I say it the more boldly, 
because the learned men who have been so educated in languages 
do iioi show any aptness to judge of physical science. In matters 
of natural knowledge, and all the uses and applications derived 
from it, I should turn to a man, untaught in other respects, who I 
knew was acquainted with these subjects, rather than to a classical 
scholar, as expecting to find within his range that mode of mind, or 
that management of the mind, which would enable him to speak 
with undei'standing. Any word that I have said that has led you 
to think that I am opposed to classics, 1 must withdraw. I have 
no such feeling. 

EVIDENCE OF PROFESSOR RICHARD OWEN. 

Q. The result of your observation, coming in communication, as 
you must have done, with various classes, — the wealthy, the middle, 
and the poor, — I suppose is, that there exists a complete deficiency 
in knowledge of physical science and natural history ? — A. The 
absence of a knowledge of the main end, methods, and application 
of natural history, has appeared to me to be greater in the higher 
and more refined classes of the community, than in the middle, 
or, perhaps, even, as regards details or species, than in the lower 
classes. If I were to select a particular group, it would hz the 
governing and legislative class ; which, from the opportunities I 
have had of hearing remarks in conversation or debate, appears to 



^6b APPENDIX. 

be least aware of the extent of the many departments of natural- 
history science, of the import of its generalizations, and especially 
of its use in disciplining the mind, irrespective of its immediate 
object of making known the different kinds of animals, plants, or 
minerals. 

Q. I suppose, when you attribute this state of ignorance to the 
higher classes, you allude to the absence of instruction, both at 
the public schools and the Universities, at which these classes, 
in particular, are educated? — A. More especially at the public 
schools. . . . 

Q. I suppose you would consider that is not the best training 
which omits the physical sciences.-* — A. Not the completest. 
Grammar and classics, arithmetic and geometry, may be the most 
important disciplinary studies. We know the faculties of the mind 
they are chiefly calculated to educe ; but they fail in bringing out 
those which natural-history science more especially tends to im- 
prove. I allude now to the faculty of accurate observation, of the 
classification of facts, of the co-ordination of classes or groups ; the 
management of topics, for example, in their various orders of im- 
portance in the mind, giving to a writer or public speaker improved 
powers of classifying all kinds of subjects. Natural history is 
essentially a classifying science. Order and method are the facul- 
ties which the elements and principles of the science are best 
adapted to improve and educe. ... In every community of two 
hundred or more youths, there must be some few, the constitution 
of whose minds is specially adapted to the study of natural history, 
to the work of observation and classification, who consequently arc 
impelled by innate aptitude to that kind of study, but who are not 
at present afforded the slightest opportunity of working their minds 
in that way ; so that it may happen that the faculty or gift for 
natural histoiy, if it be not actually destroyed by exclusive exercise 
in uncongenial studies, is never educed. What is the result.'' In 
all our great natural-history movements, we have looked in vain, 
since the death of Sir Joseph Banks, for any man having a suffi- 
cient standing in the country to fraternize with us, to understand 
us, to help us in debate or council, in questions most vital to the 
interests of natural history. It has often occurred to me to ask how 
such should be the case; and my answer has been, that, in the 
education of noblemen and gentlemen, the great landed proprietors 
of England, of those destined to take part in the legislation and 
government of the country, there has been a complete absence of a 
systematic imparting of the elements of natural history ; no de- 
monstrations of the nature and properties of plants and animals ; 
no indication of the aims and importance of natural history ; no 
training of the faculties, for which it affords the healthiest exercise : 
consequently they have not been educed. I cannot doubt that this 
must have been the effect of the present restricted system. There 
must have been by nature many Sir Joseph Banks's since he died : 
but they have been born, have grown up, and passed away without 



PROF. R. OWEN. 4^7 

working out their destined purpose ; their peculiar talent has never 
been educed ; their attention has never been turned to those 
studies : but they have been wholly devoted to classics. It must 
be remembered, that minds of this class are usually very averse to 
classical studies, and mere exercises of memory and composition : 
they never take -to them ; they get through them as well or as ill as 
they can, doing little or nothing to the purpose ; and they fail to 
achieve that for which they are naturally fitted, from the want of 
having their special faculties educed. I consider it a loss to the 
nation, that, in our great educational establishments for youth, 
there should be no arrangements for giving them the chance of 
knowing something of the laws of the living world, and how they 
are to be studied. . . . 

Q. Do you think there would be much difficulty in getting 
teachers, say for the seven or eight principal schools of the country, 
to undertake that work? — A. I am afraid at the present time that 
there would be, arising from the general defects of our teaching 
arrangements, especially the want of systematic teaching of the 
elements of natural history in schools. We are all of us, as it were, 
naturalists by accident. It is the perception of that difficulty which 
has led me, on every occasion when I have been called upon to 
give evidence on the subject, to urge the giving of elementary in- 
struction in natural history as one of the duties that should be 
attached. to the keeper of each secondary or subordinate depart- 
ment in great national museums of natural history. . . . 

Q. You say that many of those sciences are in a progressive 
state? — A. Every science we are acquainted with is one of 
progress. 

Q. But the principles of some, of the sciences are determined ; 
such as those of .mathematics, for instance ? — A. The fundamental 
principles of classification in natural history are as certain. 

Q. Take this case : fifty years ago, supposing zoology to have 
been taught in schools, would not the Linnaean system have been 
adopted? — A. You might teach the main part of that system, in 
reference to botany, as a disciplinary science at the present day. 

Q. 1 was thinking of the study of zoology? — A. In zoology, 
although of course there has been a great increase in the knowledge 
of the structure of animals since the time of Linnaeus, still the 
principles laid down in Linnsus's immortal work, " Philosophia 
Botanica," are really those that cannot be deviated from, whether 
the elements of zoology or botany be imparted. 

Q. You do not think there is any objection to the educational 
use of the physical sciences in consequence of the fluctuating or 
speculative character of those sciences? — A. I deny the "fluctuat- 
ing character : " it is not applicable to natural history. The zoolo- 
Rical system of Ray is the basis of the system of Linnasus. It 
forms an essential part of the Linnasan system. There is neither 
fluctuation nor speculation. The principles of natural history are 
already as settled and fixed as can be needed for its use as a disci- 



468 APPENDIX. 

plinary science. Modification of details would never affect its 
value in relation to elementary teaching;. 

Q. The zoological classifications of the ancients were somewhat 
puerile, were they not, even the classification of Aristotle? — A. No: 
it is surprising how much of Aristotle's system is really retained ; 
how much is founded on truth, and is the basis of the modern 
classification. 

Q. Plato was the first writer on classification, I think : Aristotle 
is very severe on him, if I remember rightly? — A. I am not sure. 
]5ut the improvement that Cuvier made on the zoological system of 
Linnaeus was mainly a revival of the Aristotelian principles, because 
Cuvier was the first modern systematist who had anything like 
the same amount of knowledge of the structure of animals which 
that wonderful man, Aristotle, possessed. 

Q. I suppose that, if we were to wait in order to teach the sub- 
ject until we entirely escaped the possibility of there being some 
change in the form and substance of the truths taught, we should 
have to wait for ever, in all sciences: should we not? — A. We 
should certainly have to wait for the termination of our existence 
as a species. 

Q. Not with respect to arithmetic, for instance ? — A. In Transac- 
tions of Societies and Academics of the Natural Sciences, we sec 
annual progress and discoveries in mathematics ; the sciences, in 
regard to the works of nature or of the Author of nature, are more 
incomplete ; and the more we know of them, the more we get im- 
pressed with the small amount of knowledge we possess. But that 
amount, compared with ignorance, is so great, and the principles 
that we arc enabled to educe from the little that we do know are so 
sure, that, taking them at the present very imperfect standard, 
whether in respect to zoology, or botany, or geology, they are as good 
for the purposes of elementary instruction and discipline as they 
will perhaps be ten thousand years hence. 

(J. There is another point upon which I should like to have your 
opinion, which is a practical matter entirely, with reference to 
natural history and philosophy. Has it occurred to you to observe, 
whether persons in the upper classes of society, and other members 
of society, are well oi' ill acquainted with the physiological laws of 
the human structure-? — A. No : it is a knowledge very rarely pos- 
sessed, as Air as my experience goes, very rarely indeed ; and I 
believe that it is chiefly upon that general ignorance that the success 
of spurious systems of medicine have their dependence. It is 
upon the general ignorance of the population that the empiric bases 
his pretensions, and has an influence for a certain time, till one 
subsides, and is succeeded by another. ... In reference to the con- 
clusion to which I have come in regard to the importance of natural 
history as an element of school instruction, and the time to be given 
to it in beginning tlie experiment, I would ask leave to read a 
passage from the address of a gentleman who fills a very eminent 
position, — tliat of Local Director of the (leological Survey of 



PROF. R. OWEN. 469 

Ireland, and Lecturer on Geology to the Museum of Irish Industry, 
Mr. J. B, Jukes; who, in opening the business of the Geological 
Section of the British Association, over which he presided at 
Cambridge, made these remarks : ** The natural sciences are now 
considered as worthy of study by those who have a taste for them, 
both in themselves and as a means of mental training and dis- 
cipline. In my time, however, no other branches of learning were 
recognised than classics and mathematics ; and I have, with some 
shame, to confess, that I displayed but a truant disposition with 
respect to them, and too often hurried from the tutor's lecture-room 
to the river or field to enable me to add much to the scanty store 
of knowledge I had brought up with me. Had it not been then for 
the teaching of Professor Sedgwick in geology, my time would 
have been altogether wasted." So that it was just the accident, so 
to speak, of one short course on a branch of natural history, 
grafted through an old bequest upon the main studies of his Uni- 
versity, that led Professor J ukcs to his appreciation of the method 
of study and value of the science which owes so much to his 
labours. I could also, with your permission, adduce a higher 
authority on the main point, and that is Baron Cuvier's ; who, in 
the preface to the first edition of his elementary book on Natural 
History, expresses himself as follows : " The habit, necessarily 
acquired in the study of natural history, of mentally classifying a 
great number of ideas, is one of,the advantages of this science 
which is seldom spoken of, and which, when it shall have been 
generally introduced into the system of common education, will 
perhaps become the principal one : it exercises the student in that 
part of logic which is termed * method,' as the study of geometry 
does in that which is called * syllogism ; ' because natural history is 
the science which requires the most precise methods, as geometry 
is that which demands the most rigorous reasoning. Now, this art 
of method, when once well acquired, may be applied with infinite 
advantage to studies the most foreign to natural history. Every 
discussion which supposes a classification of facts, every research 
which requires a distribution of matters, is performed after the 
same manner ; and he who has cultivated this science merely for 
amusement, is surprised at the facilities it affords for disentangling 
all kinds of affairs. It is not less useful in solitude ; sufficiently 
extensive to satisfy the most powerful mind ; sufficiently various 
and interesting to calm the most agitated soul : it consoles the un- 
happy, and tends to allay enmity and hatred. Once elevated to the 
contemplation of the harmony of nature, irresistibly regulated by 
Providence, how weak and trivial appear those causes which it has 
been pleased to leave dependent upon the will of man i How 
astonisliing to behold so many fine minds consuming themselves, so 
uselessly for their own happiness and that of others, in the pursuit 
of vain combinations, the very traces of which a few years suffice 
to obliterate ! I avow it proudly, these ideas have always been 
present, my mind, the companions of my labours ; and if I have 



470 APPENDIX. 

endeavoured, by every means in my power, to advance this peaceful j 
study, it is because, in my opinion, it is more capable than any ', 
other of supplying that want of occupation which has so largely \ 
contributed to the troubles of our age." I 

EVIDENCE OF DR. JOSEPH HOOKER. 

Q. I believe you are a Fellow of the Royal Society, Assistant- 
Director of the Botanical Gardens at Kevv, and the author of 
" Travels in the Himalaya" ? — A. Yes. 

Q. From your experience, and the means of observation you 
have had, have you formed any opinion as to the state of knowledge 
in natural and physical science, with respect to the education of 
the upper and middle classes, as it exists at present ? — A. At Kew, 
we are thrown into contact with persons belonging to the middle 
and upper classes in very large numbers ; and I think the regret 
that they know nothing of botany is quite apparent in all their 
communications with us. Hardly a day passes but what we receive 
communications from some part of the world in which such regret 
is expressed. 

Q. What is the nature of the communications into which you 
are brought with these classes at Kew? — A. Most prominently 
now with regard to vegetable fibres. Sometimes two or three 
letters a day come to us requiring information with regard to well- 
known fibres, which the slightest habit of observation, or the 
shghtest knowledge, would assure the persons who send them that 
they Cannot, in any way, be used for cotton. 

Q. Then these have been comparatively recent communications ? 
— A. No : they have gone on for the last twenty years of my 
father's experience, and the last ten years of my own ; not so much 
formerly with regard to cotton fibre for the use of yarns as for 
making paper, and for many other purposes to which cotton is 
applied. 

<2. In fact, you say, that the upper and middle classes in this 
country are in the habit of constantly consulting either your father 
or yourself at Kew? — A. Yes, both officially and unofficially. Q. 
And both the subjects upon which they wish to have knowledge, 
and their mode of inquiry, lead you to think that they are in a state 
of great ignorance? — A. Yes. Q. That that study in particular 
has been greatly neglected by those classes ? — A. Yery greatly. Q. 
And they have generally expressed their regret that it has been so 
neglected ? — A. Universally, I may say. Q. You have probably 
considered that the neglect of this important study is a matter of 
national regret .'' — A. I have always tliought so. 

Q. Have you ever turned your attention at all to the possibility 
of teaching botany to boys in classes at school? — A. I have 
thought that it might be done very easily ; that this deficiency 
might be easily remedied. Q. What are your ideas on the subject? 
— A. My own ideas are chiefly drawn from the experience of my 



DR. J. HOOKER. 47 1 

father-in-law, the late Professor Henslowj Professor of Botany at 
Cambridge, He introduced botany into one of the lowest possible 
class of schools, — that of village labourers' children in a remote 
part of Suffolk. 

Q. Perhaps you will have the goodness to tell us the system he 
pursued ? — A. It was an entirely voluntary system. He offered to 
enrol the school children in a class to be taught botany once a 
week. The number of children in the class was limited, I think, 
to forty-two. As his parish contained only 1,000 inhabitants, there 
never were, I suppose, the full forty-two children in the class ; their 
ages varied from about eight years old to about fourteen or fifteen. 
The class mostly consisted of girls. . . . He required, that, before 
they were enrolled in the class, they should be able to spell a few 
elementary botanical terms, including some of the most difficult to 
spell, and those that were the most essential to begin with. Those 
who brought proof that they could do this were put into the third 
class ; then they were taught once a week, by himself generally, 
for an hour or an hour and a half, sometimes for two hours .(for 
they were exceedingly fond of it). 

Q. Did he use to take them out in the country, or was it simply 
lessons in the school ? — A. He left them to collect for themselves ; 
but he visited his parish daily, when the children used to come up 
to him, and bring the plants they had collected ; so that the lessons 
went on all the week round. There was only one day in the week 
on which definite instruction was given to the class ; but on Sunday 
afternoon he used to allow the senior class, and those who got 
marks at the examinations, to attend at his house. . . . 

Q. Did he find any difficulty in teaching this subject in class ? — 
A. None whatever ; less than he would have had in dealing with 
almost any other subject. 

Q. Do you know in what way he taught it ? did he illustrate it ? 
— A. Invariably : he made it practical. He made it an objective 
study. The children were taught to know the plants, and to pull 
thenT to pieces ; to give their proper names to the parts ; to indicate 
the relations of the parts to one another ; and to find out the rela- 
tion of one plant to another by the knowledge thus obtained. 

Q. They were children, you say, generally from eight to twelve ? 
— A. Yes, and up to fourteen. Q. And they learnt it readily ? — A. 
Readily and voluntarily, entirely. Q. And were interested in it ?— 
A. Extremely interested in it. They were exceedingly fond of it. 

Q. Do you happen to know whether Professor Henslow thought 
that the study of botany developed the faculties of the mind, — that 
it taught these children to think ? and do you know whether he 
perceived any improvement in their mental faculties from that ? — 
A. Yes : he used to think it was the most important agent that 
could be employed for cultivating their faculties of observation, 
and for strengthening their reasoning powers. 

Q. He really thought that he had arrived at a practical result ? — 
A. Undoubtedly; and so did every one who visited the school or 



472 APPENDIX. 

the parish. Q. They were children of quite the lower class ? — At 
The labouring agricultural class. Q. And in other branches re- 
ceiving the most elementary instruction ? — A. Yes. 

Q. And Professor Henslow thought that their minds were more 
developed ; that they were become more reasoning beings, from 
having this study superadded to the others ? — A. Most decidedly. 
It was also the opinion of some of the inspectors of schools, who 
came to visit him, that such children were in general more intelligent 
than those of other parishes ; and they attribute the difference to 
their observant and reasoning faculties being thus developed. , . . 

Q. So that the intellectual success of this objective study was 
beyond question ? — A. Beyond Ciuestion. ... In conducting the 
examinations of medical men for the army, which I have now con- 
ducted for several years, and those for the East-India Company's 
service, which I have conducted for, I think, seven years, the 
questions which I am in the habit of putting, and which are no/ 
answered by the majority of the candidates, are what would have 
been answered by the children in Professor Henslow's village 
school. I believe the chief reason to be, that these students' 
observing faculties, as children, had never been trained, — such 
faculties having lain dormant with those who naturally possessed 
them in a high degree ; and having never been developed, by 
training, in those who possessed them in a low degree. In most 
medical schools, the whole sum and substance of botanical science 
is crammed into a few weeks of lectures, and the men leave the 
class without having acquired an accurate knowledge of the merest 
elements of the science. . . . 

Q. At the High School in Glasgow, did you observe among the 
boys a difference of aptitude for the three branches of languages, 
mathematics, and the sciences of observation ? — A. Very great. 

Q. A boy who distinguishes himself in classics might have an 
inaptitude for mathematics and natural science, and vice versa? — 
A. Yes. One of my OAvn classmates was a dull boy in the High 
School, where mathematics were not then taught, except in the 
senior class, which I did not attend. He was the best mathema- 
tician of his year at the University afterwards. 

Q. Do you not think that it is very undesirable that a boy at 
school, having faculties of a particular kind, should have them 
wholly neglected ? Take the example of a boy who has really an 
aptitude for the natural sciences ; do you not think it a very hard 
case that his faculties should be wholly neglected ? — A. I think it 
is very hard. Nothing is more destructive to his whole education. 

Q. Supposing that a boy happened not to have a turn for lan- 
guages, his place in school would be very low down. Would it not 
have an injurious moral effect habitually for him to be regarded as 
stupid, because he had no talent for languages ? — A. Yes. 

Q. It would have a tendency to impair his self-respect.'' — A. Yes. 

Q. The same boy, if he had an opportunity of cultivating his 
faculties in the natural sciences, and using his abilities there, would 



DR. J. HOOKER. 473 

be likely to become a much more useful member of society ? — 
A. Yes, much more. . . . 

Q. The majority of the young men who are intended for the 
medical profession, and who come from the various public schools 
of the country, scarcely ever bring with them xny physical science, 
do they ? — A. None whatever, or very rarely. 

Q. As far as your observation goes, that is generally neglected in 
your profession ? — A. Yes ; and it is a want more felt by medical 
men than by any others. The amount of botany and chemistry 
required by the medical man might be as easily obtained at school 
as during the time he is undergoing his medical curriculum. 

Q. I suppose you have found a sentiment of regret prevailing 
amongst them at the manner in which those valuable years of their 
lives had been employed.'' — A. Very generally. 

Q. And they would have liked to have spent them differently ? — 
A. Yes, to a great extent. I never knew them regret their classics 
and mathematics ; quite the contrary : but they do regret very 
much that their faculties were not early trained to habits of 
observation. When they go round the hospitals, they have felt that 
they have not been taught to observe, and to reason upon what 
they observe, as they might have been. 

Q. Do you think there is a general feeling amongst those men, 
that the study of physical science might have been added to the 
classics, without impairing that knowledge which they would be 
glad to have acquired ? — A. That was the universal feeling. 



THE END. 



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